Return to Sender
by Richard Banker
Summary: Mark Waddle returns to Larkhall, just as the prison is facing privatisation. Karen/Yvonne.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: All the characters used within this story are the property of Shed Productions. I am using them solely to explore my creative ability.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.

Return to Sender

By

Richard

Scene One

Mark Waddle sat on the hard plastic bench, barely screened from the elements in the dimly lit deserted station foyer in a northern town. The name of the

city was ceasing to have any feel or semblance of home, just a brief scene in transit in his life before the train was due to take him to the new act in

his life. The prison likewise was going to become just another nick he'd worked for in his personnel file when he had put emotional and physical distance

from it. His overnight case was in his hand like any drifter moving from town to town across the length and breadth of Great Britain. He felt only that

intermission feeling of terminal boredom waiting for the late train to come running down the line from distant towns. He felt in his jacket pocket for

a lighter and a packet of cigarettes and inhaled the nicotine gratefully. The open station was a natural wind tunnel which blew a concentrated blast of

cold wind on him to add to the freezing cold and his own dark mood.

From the start, Mark Waddle hated the new antiseptic prison life that he had moved to on transfer. HM Prison Bradgate was one of those new prisons that

had been run up in the last ten years, which sounded fine on paper- except for the people there. To think that the crumbling Victorian pile of Larkhall

would have any attraction in comparison was a real turnabout in his thinking. Months back, when he was on an identical train station at the end of the

line coming up to here rather than going back, the future was bright and hopeful, new city, new job on promotion and a new life.

He had thought that the slippery sly Neil Grayling was the 'boss from hell' and Jim Fenner the sort of schoolyard bully he had hated and loathed since schooldays

. This was before he had come across John Bostock, the Wing Governor at Bradgate.

"I run a tight ship, Mark." His expressionless voice had bypassed his frozen lips."Anyone new coming here either fits in here or gets out. I do things my

way. As Senior Officer, you know where your loyalties are. I expect you to crack down on the moaners around here and if I hear that you haven't, I crack

down on you. I get to hear about everything round here. Got that?"

The man was only half listening to him while he did some scribbling in a file on his desk. At least Grayling pretended to give you his full undivided attention

and his best false smile and at least if you told him that Fenner was against the idea you wanted, you could influence the slippery snake. You might as

well influence a brick wall by talking to it, Mark reflected bitterly, within the first week of working with John Bostock. All promotion did for him was

to make him Mr Bastard's very junior mate. This was one reason that he got out and found himself on the near midnight train to Larkhall.

From endlessly looking at the dimly lit display board, the last minute had come and he willed the last few seconds to tick by. Then, in the distance, came

the very faint distinct sounds of the incoming train growing ever louder as the metallic sounds and the dark shape appeared with a scattering of lights.

Mark grabbed his case, yanked open the train door and, as expected, found his choice of the double seats with a table and space to stretch his legs.

On the table in front of him was a crumpled up paper that a previous passenger had thrown away. Mark picked it up and flipped through it while the train

rattled along the tracks in the pitch black night in the middle of God knew where. Mark was cocooned in the rapidly moving train, alone with his thoughts,

his suitcase and a throwaway newspaper. Yet another set of celebrity photos of Britney Spears. Nice legs, he thought, and he liked the look of the outfit

she was wearing, what there was of it. The guy who wrote the article seemed pretty brain dead though and sounded as if his tongue was handing out onto

the keyboard of his computer. Nothing much in the sports section that he hadn't read before and the front page was devoted to yet another tirade about

asylum seekers and why don't the government find more effective ways of locking them up prior to throwing them out of the country.

Mark smiled cynically at this one. As if life were so simple. His working life was in locking people up for a living and slamming the cell doors shut was

only the start of what it was all about. He wasn't much keener than anyone of the numbers coming to this country than anyone else but, though these families

would have language problems, they hadn't actually committed any crime, not like the drug dealers and violent men who transplanted their gang mentality

into the closed in world of Bradgate Prison. He could still see the bullet headed faces in their striped uniforms and closed in worlds, not much different

from the POs who just happened to wear different uniforms carry the keys.

Mark was tired, as it had been a long day. He'd thanked the landlord who had been patient with his rather erratic payments of rent. All it had taken was

a large metal trunk, which he'd somehow squeezed into a black cab and seen on its way to his parents at Larkhall. All that was left was his beds, stripped

bare, waiting for the next transient soul to be a backdrop of another disconnected story. He'd manhandled his case onto the bus to Bradgate prison for

the last time and hauled it all the way to the bright blue metal door and the familiar blue plaque announcing its identity.

He passed by the cell of a guy called Melvin who was busy scrawling letters to his girlfriend on the outside. The man's face smiled underneath the three

day growth of beard and slightly wrinkled features. Mark Waddle knew his form. Three years inside for beating the hell out of his recently married bride

of a few weeks yet he kept babbling on about his long time on and off girlfriend. By the sounds of it, she was this educated college girl who understood

him as no one ever did and who was bringing up three children on her own. He sounded like a nice guy to talk to and everytime he passed by his cell, he

called him inside and talked incessantly about Allah and what spirituality meant to him. This was weird to Mark as he understood that the guy was Jewish.

A complicated man but too bad, as the man was a smackhead.

"Best of luck, boss." Melvin said to him and Mark was slightly touched by this. This was going to be the one and only words of farewell and good wishes

he was going to get at this dump.

Sure enough, the other POs studiously ignored him as they had done every day that he worked there. This had hurt him when he first started at Bradgate as

he was, by nature, a sociable man, fond of going down to the pub with 'the lads' but he had got used to his own company over time, even in the Social Club,

where he went to his own corner of the dark, smoky room, smelling of alcohol as every PO social club did. When he was on duty, he had got into the habit

of just talking shop and never joined in the conversations with the others which drifted over his head. As Senior Officer, he gave the orders but, outside

this narrow world, every nuance of the place tried to make him feel the lowest of the low.

Right at the end, he picked up a copy of the POA Magazine which was flung in the corner. In the lead article it announced "Privatisation- The Government

give no Guarantees for the future"

"Yeah, right," Mark snorted cynically, left the magazine for the next unseeing reader and slid out of the prison ready to face his future. He had asked

for a posting anywhere so naturally, Area had chosen Larkhall to be his future. After all these months of living hell at Bradgate, even Larkhall was beginning

to have its attractions.

Scene Two

John Bostock closed the file on Mark Waddle with a smile of satisfaction and dropped it in the out tray to go back to Area and then on to this Larkhall

Prison down south. Probably all the female Eastenders criminal types from London end up there with a load of Cockneys in charge. He's a Senior Officer

down right now but anything is better than having some wet liberal cluttering up his nick. Bradgate is meant to be mean and hard to scare the shit out

of all the villains in the area so they don't come this way. Give Waddle half a chance and he'd turn it into a bloody holiday camp and have everyone dressed

up as Redcoats. Thank God the lads sorted him out in no time at all and put the squeeze on him.

"You're telling me that my Principal Officer assaulted you in the toilet, Waddle? That's rubbish. I know him from when we were in training school together.

We've shared a couple of training courses together so I know John Fletcher like the back of my own hand."

"Perhaps you'd better ask the guy for his side of the story before you disbelieve me." The big girl's blouse had the bloody cheek to tell him.

"So why are you wasting my time. At the very least, one man's word against another and in this case, the word of a Senior Officer with pips on your shoulder

so new the pips squeak against my oldest and most trusted officer who's judgement I'd back to the hilt."

"Because I want out of here, John Bostock. I'm putting in for a transfer even if it meant going back to the prison I came from. I know I'm beaten so I'm

taking myself to where I'm better appreciated. There you are, you have it in writing."

And Mark Waddle remembered looking at this hard faced guy in the eye with his slow burning anger threatening to boil over at any moment as he scribbled

out the note. He knew he was an inch away from landing a punch on this man's face with all the force of his strength. The feeling choked him up inside

and made it very hard to think outside the total burning fury bottled up inside him that blotted out everything around him. Once shown the faintest glimpse

of his liberty, a transfer out, then it was as if an alcoholic, long denied his drink, totally binges and becomes drunk with his freedom. It took all of

the strength of the little voice of reason and long institutionalised military order to hold him back.

"So what are you waiting for, Waddle?" the hard faced man sneered at him.

"For you to not provoke me into doing something that I'll regret." Mark's unsteady voice half choked by the anger within him as he rose from his seat, resting

his knuckles on his desk. "And that you'll regret more than me."

"Are you threatening me, Waddle." Came John Bostock hard-edged voice, provoked to real anger.

"It's a promise, mate." Mark's reply was propelled and more focussed by anger and a little part of him, gaining a flash of satisfaction that, at last, he's

rattled his cage. He looked John Bostock straight in the eye.

"I'll speed up a request to any nick that'll take you. You and me are never going to make a go at getting on with each other." John Bostock's unnaturally

quiet voice responded, trying to sound matter of fact but fractionally failing. This was a new one on him and he wanted to get this guy out of his office

and fast, and invading his personal space and his desk by his physical presence and something highly menacing about him.

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The phone rang in Neil Grayling's office while he was working intently on his laptop, his latest gadget. Only when the tone became insistent that, with

a flash of anger, he picked up the phone if only to silence its intrusion into his life.

"Grayling, here." His flat tones announced.

"Ah, Neil, " the familiar voice from Area personnel sounded in his ear."We think we have the solution to your vacancy of a Senior Officer that you've been

bending our ear about."

"Yes," Grayling asked cautiously. He had been insistent upon the point when he thought about it and the fact that he was having lovelife problems had nothing,

of course, to do with giving those slowcoaches at area a periodic verbal nudge.

"We have a fully competent Senior Officer with the best of recommendations on level transfer from up north, from Bradgate prison…"

"And his name………" Grayling broke intro the sales pitch.

"Mark Waddle. You're getting him next Monday. I think you've worked with him before so he should know the ropes." carried on the enthusiastic sales pitch

to Grayling's unbelieving ears.

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The voice over the phone from far off Area had broken through distance instananeously to carry the news of Mark Waddle's impending arrival to Grayling.

The train sped down the metallic parallel lines towards its destination while rain spattered the windows, carried on vicious squalls of wind that made

those on the inside feel as cosy as the train carriage will allow. Inside, a sleepy fug settled down on the train and its temporary inhabitants, causing

those most tired to slump sideways against whatever crevice the sleepy shape can cling to and for the mobile phone addicts and the workaholic laptop tappers

to fall silent.

"We are now approaching Larkhall station." came the impersonal voice out of nowhere."Remember to ensure you take all your luggage with you."

Mark shook himself awake, rubbed the sleep out of the eyes and the crick in his neck where his head was resting and stumbled towards the door, his suitcase

bouncing off the seats. Just in time, he yanked the door open and half fell out of the carriage onto the platform just before the train started sliding

away out of the station.

The large sign 'LARKHALL' stared him in the face and brought home reality to him, the one place in the world he'd sworn never to come back to. Even though

he'd chosen to come back here, a feeling of abstract panic rose in him which he had to fight hard to keep within limits. He trod slowly and reluctantly,

the short distance through the cold empty foyer to the nearest phone box to call a taxi.

Scene Three

The wall clock ticked away what felt like hours while Karen's mind shut off the evidence of her ears of the unbelievable news that was dropped on her by

a very smug, malicious Sylvia Hollamby.

"The powers that be will be delighted to know that you won't have a Sylvia Hollamby to kick around any more." That loud self-important voice broke in on

Karen's close concentration of the file she was studying in her office.

"Come again." Karen's vision focussed upwards to see her least welcome and most unusual visitor."Where did you spring from?" she added more sharply.

"My Bobby has been fighting a case against the Prison Service for years. Ever since he was forced out of the Prison Service by some Miss Interfering Busybody"

Bodybag venomously uttered. "He's now got a lump sum pension and backdated superannuation from the Prison Service. No more locking up vicious, ungrateful

cons for me and having to kowtow to the likes of you."

Karen was flooded by a mixture of feelings. The first thought was that she would be one Senior Officer down and the duties would need to be spread around.

The second was a warm feeling that the substantial shape of Sylvia Hollamby, a persistent thorn in her side who moaned and criticised her behind her back

was disappearing in an incongruous cloud of smoke. She squashed down the resentment that Sylvia had come into the money was unworthy. Overlaying these

feelings was that she should not seem too eager and glad to see the back of her.

"Well, well, Sylvia. This is a surprise. Of course, I'm glad for you and Bobby and I hope you both have a comfortable retirement. All of us have that dream

of getting to where you and Bobby are now. I assume that you will be working your notice, Sylvia."

"Then assume wrong, Miss Betts." Sylvia's full venom was revealed."I'm going at the end of this week and count yourself lucky that I'm not walking out here

and now."

"This leaves us in rather an awkward spot," Karen replied with a bit of an edge to her voice. "Still a woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do. I suppose

you don't want a farewell do…..like your wedding anniversary, Sylvia." At this point, Karen hand moved to cover her mouth to conceal the large grin that

was splitting her face from ear to ear as her memory of Sylvia's very excitable dancing and attempt to pull any man on the dance floor.

"No I do not. And you leave my Bobby out of this. A drink at the pub with Jim will do nicely for me. He's the only one who has shown me any consideration

and friendship." Bodybag stormed at her.

If only you knew, Sylvia, Karen smiled cynically to herself. And you never once wondered how I came across the newspaper picture of you and Bobby doing

the light fandango while you, the supposed invalid, was feebly tottering to work with your neck brace. The extension of your daily embarrassment of prancing

around in your tracksuit was down to everybody's best friend, bloody Jim Fenner.

"Do you want to say the farewells now or later, Sylvia." Karen's chilly tones accompanied her very formal outstretched hand, which was designed to put that

bloody woman on the spot.

"Save your farewells, Miss Betts." Bodybag scowled at her and turned for the door.

"In which case, goodbye and good riddance." Karen's parting salvo was fired with all the pent up frustrations of the past few years.

Karen helped herself to a celebratory glass of vodka and toasted soon to be absent not exactly friends. A shaft of sunshine peeked out of the white cotton

wool cloud and threw an illuminated patch of light on her desk which matched her mood. Then she picked up the phone to let Grayling know and give him the

job of finding a replacement Senior Officer. That made her smile the more as the buckpassing sod was always palming off work onto her if he could get away

with it so that he could swan off to some conference.

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Grayling picked out in Karen Betts's tones, the very hidden amusement that he is being pushed into getting something sorted out fast. He resented that.

He has clawed his way up to being Governing Governor so that he had the power and was in command of his destiny and of those below him. And he was very

conscious of rank as rank equals power.

"Hello, Roy. Can you start the ball rolling and get me a new Senior Officer. I'll put it in writing. I don't care where or how you get the replacement.

I'll send you a letter to put it in writing."

"Relax, Neil." Came the self assured voice, knowing what a worrier the man is."I'll get onto this straight away. There'll be someone from the provinces

around that is attracted to the London weighting and who wants to run out on the partner."

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Fenner and Bodybag marched out of the prison to the pub, cavalierly telling Ken to cover for both of them on Friday lunchbreak. Ken opened his mouth to

protest at this being dropped on him at the last minute only to receive, full in the eye, one of Fenner's more murderous glares.

"Let them have their fun", Karen told Ken under her breath out of their earshot. Ken closed his mouth thinking, after all, that he didn't want to start

an unpleasant scene. He was used to smoothing things over, largely at his expense which is why they picked on him as dogsbody."Wish Mark Waddle was here,"

he muttered. "He was the one man who could stand up to him."

Bodybag marched out of Larkhall looking like the Queen of Sheba, at least in her own mind and they walked together down the lane in the clear blue frosty

air, a welcome change from the stale recirculated fuggy atmosphere inside the prison..

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"Well, the Prison Service will miss you, Sylv" Fenner drunkenly assured Bodybag as they sat in the corner of the 'Larkhall Arms', the third drink already

on the table."Remember what it was like in the old days under Pickering. He was a Wing Governor who taught me all I knew." laughed Fenner.

"None of those prisoners rights in those days, Jim." Bodybag beamed."If some con dared to breath so much as a word that we'd been a bit firm with her, Pickering

himself banged the con up at once and turned a blind eye if some of the PO's had a word or two with the con down the block."

"No letters to the Guardian." Fenner chimed in, the alcohol lending bravado to his tones.

"And none of the likes of Miss Stewart with her 'do gooder' ways. If she'd been there in the old days, she'd have been an ordinary PO organising the tea

for the rest of us." Bodybag malignantly joined in with Fenner. Even if Helen Stewart had left the prison service and had moved on, Bodybag had hoarded

her grudges and still keenly smarted from Helen's sharp rebukes.

"And dyke bitches like that Wade bitch would never have been let out of seg. And not gone swanning about the place getting special favours from Wing governors.

Not off old Pickering." And at this point, both of them laughed heartily, seeing before their eyes a vision of Larkhall that had passed into memories even

if the solid grey stone structure dated from the Victorian days of empire. To the two of them, the past was almost tangible, almost but not quite within

their reach, especially when alcohol fuelled their feelings of nostalgia.

Scene Four

Karen noticed one letter sent to her from Area. This seemed to be of more importance than the usual clutter of junk mail that came her way. It wasn't only

Grayling's managementspeak that had the ability to talk about everything yet to actually say nothing. There were days when Karen wondered if she ought

to have stuck to nursing but from what she's read in the papers these days about hospital trusts, the same wave of oily polluted language would have flooded

into the places that dealt with the healing of the sick, injured and dying. The good memories of her nursing days that were started to creep into her mind

were only good because she never knew when she was younger the sort of shit she now had to deal with.

She flipped open the stuck down grid envelope and spread open the contents of the letter and took a series of deep breaths to get over a feeling of panic

that swelled inside her.

"Oh shit." she said.

'Notification of transfer.

'Senior Officer M J Waddle is starting at H.M. Larkhall on level transfer with effect from October 26th 2002 from H.M Bradgate to replace the vacancy left

by S Hollamby who resigned recently.

You will draw to the attention of the officer concerned the provisions under the staff code of any entitlement to travelling expenses…….. …… "

At that point the rest of the letter went out of focus and her feelings went into overdrive instead. Why in hell did Mark want to transfer back to Larkhall

of all places. Surely he was established in a nice new cosy life up North, well beyond Hatfield and the motorway sign pointing out uncharted territory

for Mark and anyone that she knew. And why in hell should he want to come back to Larkhall of all places. It couldn't be some forlorn romantic dream that

Mark had, looking at the past through rose tinted spectacles that, given the separation of time, both of them would think that they had made a mistake

in splitting up in the first place. That would a very drastic rewriting of history, Karen thought, her lips tightening as she remembered that she was the

one that told Mark that he was a nice guy but that it was not happening between them. Mark had always been the one to put his heart on his sleeve with

an intensity that scared her. She had wanted that tentative shapeless formless thing to 'take it easy' to 'let it flow', 'have a few laughs'. It was a

coming together of two office colleagues who had recently broken previous relationships where they had the odd game of squash together, had a few drinks

and, one night spent the night together. He had read far more into all that than she was prepared to consider. She screwed the transfer notice up and threw

it in the wastebin to put distance from it until she realised that this was official business and couldn't be cast aside that easily.

The business side of her that made her able to wrench a situation away from the emotional brink too charge of her, with a big effort of will. At the end

of the day, she had lost one moaning, useless woman who forever complained about her by a man who suited much more her way of dealing with prisoners. He

was kind, caring, very professional and, like her, saw that there was some good in prisoners if only he could reach it. The sort of new POs that were coming

into the service were increasingly becoming the backlash to the sort of progressive ideas; she, Helen Stewart and other isolated pioneers were trying to

bring in.

Increasingly, she was feeling more and more isolated. Fenner was there like some lowering storm cloud now that she could see through him. He was getting

at the new POs and infecting them with his level of cynicism. In place of the welcome patronage of Stubberfield, she was up against that slippery snake,

Grayling. She resolved to herself that she needed to make it quite clear right from the start that she wanted a professional relationship and to keep all

past bitter arguments strictly off limits. Perhaps things might be looking up if things were handled right.

She knew that she could do with all the help that came her way. The impending privatisation of Larkhall gave her that chill feeling inside and that the

pressure was on her.

Suddenly, she threw her pen down as the paperwork swam before her eyes and refused to make sense. She had to take a stroll and clear her head and she couldn't

think of a better place to go than walk up to the 3s and chat with Yvonne. Ever since the fire at Larkhall and the discovery how badly they were conned

by the same man, Ritchie Atkins, her lover and Yvonne's son, they discovered that they had more in common than they had ever thought that they had.

Scene Five

"Hard day at the office?" Yvonne ironic tones greeted Karen as she flopped herself down on Yvonne's bunk without any preliminaries.

"Only my usual day to day job, wiping arses, like a whole prison load." Karen nodded and sighed. "Keep this under your hat but there's a couple of people

coming in tomorrow to look round Larkhall from a firm called Lynford Securities……."

"You what?" Yvonne's face expressed total puzzlement." Are you seriously telling me that her Majesty's Prison Larkhall needs a home security team to fit

up bleeding burglar alarms?"

"Lynford Securities are a private security firm who are putting in a bid to take over the running of this place. There will be a clean sweep of some of

us, if not all of us." Karen explained patiently. A feeling of despair overtook her when the potential complexities were whizzing round in her head and

that her brief words were not even remotely doing justice to it. Even someone as sharp as Yvonne wasn't getting the picture.

"Well, if some of the screws like Bodybag, I mean Mrs Hollamby, gets the boot, things can only get better."Yvonne snorted contemptuously. "Clear out some

of the dead wood and dead from the neck up screws. She's bleeding lucky she jumped instead of being pushed."

"Don't think for a moment, Yvonne, that things couldn't get any worse here and that Larkhall has the worst prison officers around," Karen said evenly and

slowly. "I've known very well what you've thought of Sylvia Hollamby and, come to think of that, I've had my own opinions as well. But imagine this place

being run by frightened men and women with lousy training, cutting corners for profit, making sure that nice fat dividends get paid out, at the expense

of you and me. Think of it, Yvonne."

"Fenner would be well away," Yvonne snorted." They'd welcome him with open arms. I could imagine him stealing your job."

"I couldn't possibly comment on that, Yvonne," Karen's deadpan facial expression was betrayed by that very slight upturn at the corner of her mouth."Still

there's another piece of news. Mark Waddle's coming back to take her place."

Yvonne's face brightened. That was good news as she'd heard what Mark Waddle did for Buki Lester and for Roisin. One of the better screws around. Good looking

guy as well.

"Well, that's some good news, Karen. You two used to be close at one time."

"We were," Karen replied, flatly."I'd better be on my rounds. See you, Yvonne."

"See you, Karen." Yvonne replied in those tones of easy familiarity. She wanted to stay in her cell and mull over what Karen had said, her expansiveness

of conversation over the Lynfords thing and her bare clipped delivery of speech about Mark Waddle.

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Mark got off the red London bus, a large holdall slung over his shoulder with all the assorted work possessions. In front of him were the familiar wooden

gates and ancient ramparts of Larkhall Prison. The whole scene had an element of unreality as if life was an old time filmtrack only the operator had fitted

it in wrong way round. The gates of Larkhall enlarged themselves bit by bit when once, as periodic glances over his shoulder told him, the prison diminished

in size until his eager rapid strides took him round the corner and Larkhall abolished from his vision. Now he was, with full consciousness, choosing to

go back.

"Hello, Ken." Mark greeted the familiar face at the door with a heartiness that was partly him keeping his spirits up."Long time, no see."

"Hey, it's great to see you, Mark. This place hasn't been the same since you left. Let's have a drink in the Social club first chance we get."

"I'll hold you to that one,"Mark said, his spirits lifting. A chance to mix again in human company would be a real tonic after all those months of being

treated as a social outcast. This put him on a roll to face less welcome people around, Grayling being the first.

"Hello, Mr Waddle, nice to see you back." echoed down the wing as Mark made his way to Mr Grayling's wing.

"Mr Waddle sir, how did they let a dangerous trouble maker like you back here?" Yvonne grinned, her tones a mixture of light sarcasm underlain by real respect.

"It takes one to know one, Yvonne." Mark's lightning quick response was accompanied by his cheekiest grin.

"Off to see Grayling, sir?" Yvonne joined in the double act, attempting to cap Mark's very amusing one liner.

"Yeah well," Mark replied in a theatrically exaggerated casual style." I might be left hanging around a bit while Grayling personally rolls out the red

carpet for me. Can't get the service these days."

"See you around," smiled Yvonne, nonchalantly leaning against the wall while Mark strode along the corridor.

"Mark Waddle, grab a chair. I'm delighted that a man of your experience is here to fill the breach. It's good that someone who I have taken a personal interest

to move up the career ladder has come back to us to do his bit to keep HMS Larkhall afloat and steaming full speed ahead."

It's the way Grayling he tells bullshit with such a straight face, Mark thought cynically and what hideous cliches he comes out with. As an afterthought

he concluded that he is better, than the Terminator monster at Bradgate, just about.

"I'm glad to come back here, sir. I've had a quick wander around and it feels like I've never been away. All the old faces are still here …..except Sylvia.

I'll do my best to fill the gap, obviously." Mark responded with a sincere smile designed to covered up his real feelings and leave the bastard guessing.

"You understand you'll be back on G wing, Mark. I trust that it poses no particular problems." Grayling said quietly with an apparently concerned expression.

"That's fine by me. I know everyone and they know me. Show me to the locker room to dump my stuff and then on to G wing." Mark's best casual tones blocked

off Grayling's little feeler out about how his past problematic relationships both with Fenner and with Karen and ended on a tone of breezy confidence.

"Perhaps you ought to see Karen Betts and Jim Fenner first, both of whom you'll be working for." Grayling persisted with a sly smile.

"Oh yeah, that goes without saying." Mark chipped the last sly comment back. And he stood up to shake Grayling's cold, unenthusiastic hand and strolled

out to renew old acquaintance.

Scene Six

Karen was running over in her mind exactly what she wanted to say to Mark until she realised that the Karen Betts she would be depended very much on the

Mark Waddle she would be facing. This is impossible, she decided, throwing down her pen on her desk, and reaching for a cigarette. This is like a puzzle

with no answer. Friendly but businesslike was what finally jumped into her mind and be ready to adjust to anything.

"Come in, Mark." Karen's outstretched hand shook Mark's hand firmly and gestured him to a chair while she sat back behind her desk "Looks like I've swapped

you for Sylvia Hollamby whose husband Bobby has come into the money so it's 'piss off Larkhall, I don't need you any more.'" Karen explained with a slight

edge of annoyance at the departed Bodybag.

"Well, at least I'm better looking than she is," Mark replied impulsively with a wide grin.

"Just as you understand, Mark, that things are strictly on a professional basis. Get any romantic dreams out of your head. I'm wing Governor, you're my

Senior Officer." Karen's frosty reply was distinctly unromantic.

"That suits me fine, Karen Betts." Mark's tone was equally cold. "There's a few things you ought to understand. I vowed when I left Larkhall that nothing

would drag me back here. What's driven me back here is the pure living hell of Bradgate Prison with a total swine of a Wing Governor called John Bostock

who's worse than Fenner could ever be. I wanted out and if getting out was Larkhall, well, that's a step up in the world. All I want is to be treated fairly

and decently and I know I'll get that off you."

"What are you saying, Mark?" Karen looked disbelievingly.

"Oh, nothing much, Karen." Mark's flat emotionless tones told more."Only the sort of things that can happen in a man's prison, dangerous gangsters all around

you, both those inside the cells and those carrying the keys. Like the time I was beaten up by the Principal Officer who got away with it because that

bastard is thick as thieves with the Wing Governor. Do you know what it is to have that level of injustice done to you and there's sod all you can do about

it as all the cards are stacked against you and………."

Karen's eyes opened wide in shock Out from her unconscious jumped her feelings of being in front of Grayling, being a supplicant while he played with her

vulnerabilities when she went to see Fenner for the time when she called at his bedsit and………

"So really back here at Larkhall, is a move up in the world, even with Fenner and Grayling." Mark 's voice was more cheerful and positive." I can handle

you getting prickly with me from time to time." And Mark stretched himself out more confidently in the chair.

"Well, any trouble you have with Fenner, I'll have his balls on my mantlepiece, I mean that, Mark."

"Did Fenner tell you that I kneed him in the bollocks as my parting gift to him…..oh he didn't" Mark added seeing Karen's spontaneous grin.

"You'd better get it over with and see Jim Fenner. And try and keep it peaceful. I've got work to do."

And Mark drifted out in a haze of contentment. He knew enough to realise that he would get a fair deal from his Wing Governor and that if he handled things

right, there would be no tensions. And Karen drew a breath of relief that the worst of her fears were confronted and, yes Mark was a big improvement on

Sylvia. She was going to need it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hello, Jim. Remember me?" Came a hearty voice and a slap on the back from out of nowhere for Fenner as he stood talking to Colin Hedges who was nodding

eagerly back at him.

"Waddle," Fenner turned round and glared, his mouth tight drawn and his eyes glittering. "Just so that you know that I'm Principal Officer round her and,

as Senior Officer, you're bosses mate, a very junior mate. You come with me and I'll show you the ropes…..Now."

"I'll treat you with as much respect, Jim Fenner as I've always done." Mark laughed in his face, squaring up to him." Exactly the same as before I became

Senior Officer. And you've got me to chat to instead of Sylvia."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Mr Waddle, Sir. Grateful though all the girls here are to see the one of the few decent screw come back here, we were wondering if you were feeling quite

yourself to volunteer to come back here. " Yvonne Atkins chipped in with her unique blend of spiky humour leaving exposed a real respect under the flimsy

surface attitude. The Atkins memory banks had registered in her faultless records how caring he'd been to Buki and Roisin.

"Couldn't stand the beer up north, Yvonne." Mark joked back. The friendly cross cutting banter made Mark the old friendly, expansive self and banished the

solitary recluse of Bradgate prison. Soon Denny, the 2 Julies, and Buki gathered round while Fenner was getting more and more angry at the way that he

was sidelined and fuming at the way Mark was dawdling around nattering when he had work to do.

"All right, break it up, girls, you're keeping Mr Waddle from his work." Fenner finally broke in, tension running through him at the sheer frustration of

being unable to bend the group of people to his will. He hated it when even one person defied his schemes, let alone a crowd of people.

"I'll catch up with everything later," Mark finished hastily as Fenner clutched him by his arm and hustled him away to the PO's room. Yvonne shook her head,

grinning wickedly as she bloody well knew that Mark was relying on the girls to find out what was going down at Larkhall, and not that bastard Fenner.

"Not changed have you, Waddle." Fenner sneered.

"Neither have you, Fenner." Waddle shot back. Mark was as cool as ice and was feeling as good about himself as any time in his life. Snap responses were

coming quick and fast out from the depths of his mind and Fenner was getting clearly rattled.

"Look here, Fenner." Mark said patiently."I've got a job to do so have you. I need to sort out the duties so I can start straight off and get onto the Wing.

Only thing, Jim Fenner, no dirty tricks, just play things straight down the line and I'll work with you as well as I can with someone I despise. You put

one inch over the line and I go to Karen Betts."

"You think that Betts will listen to you, after what happened. You got your arse straight out of Larkhall so quick that your feet didn't touch the ground."

Fenner sneered." It's obvious what that was all about."

At that, Mark snapped. With more controlled anger than he thought himself capable of he grabbed Fenner by his tie making him choke.

"I told you, Fenner, what would happen if you step over the line. I didn't tell you what I'd do to you myself." Slow anger burned in Mark's eyes. "You don't

want your love life to be permanently put out of action."

An instinct at the back of Fenner's mind told him that he had pushed things too far. He'd better cool it before this dangerous headcase went off on one.

Besides, he was sure that Atkins and her witches coven were looking on. He'll settle scores with Waddle later on.

Scene Seven

"For Goodness sake." Karen broke in on the tension filled moment. She had walked along the wing, spotted Fenner and Mark Waddle headed for the PO's room

and sensed trouble straight off. "I'm not having you two brawling already. I don't want to know who started it first Break it up or both of you or I'll

throw the book at both of you." Her whipcrack voice grabbed control of the situation straightaway.

Fenner slunk out of the door and headed elsewhere.

"Mark, I want a word with you, immediately." Karen spoke sharply.

Mark hesitated looking warily at his boss. It looked like he was going to get his first bollocking at Larkhall a mere hour after setting foot in the place.

"I thought I'd told you to keep it peaceful." Karen sighed. "I do not want to have to spend my time keeping the peace between two testerone filled men………….especially

as I suspect that at the back of your mind you are still rescuing me as the damsel in distress from Jim Fenner. I know what you're like, Mark Waddle."

"Believe what you want, Karen." Mark snapped. To begin with, he was too steamed up with anger to tell Karen that this quarrel had nothing to do with Karen.

Why did this bloody woman think that she knew his psychology better than he did? He turned his back away from her while Karen was debating this over in

her mind. At the back of her mind she knew that Mark genuinely believed what he thought. However, sincerity wasn't enough in relationships of any kind.

A gut instinct in her believed that Mark was acting out of pride and wouldn't admit that a little part of him wanted to get back with her. So it all came

out in anger.

"Look here, Karen Betts." Mark said evenly" This is a straight man to man argument. You don't come into this one believe it or not. I've straightened a

few things out with Fenner to stop him stirring things up for the future." And Mark recounted the argument, word for word, between him and Fenner while

Karen listened intently.

"Right, I'll have Fenner's balls on the mantlepiece, Mark. But try and keep the peace, Mark for my sake. It isn't easy these days. It isn't the same as

the old days." Karen added to Mark's mystification. To his way of thinking, Larkhall was enough of a snakepit and treacherous to the unwary and all his

experiences of this one-day alone only told him that things hadn't changed since he was away.

Karen turned her heel and strode out of the PO's room with all the confidence in the world to confront Fenner with a pretty cast iron, reliable case against

him. She felt totally centred and had all the will in the world to tell Jim bloody Fenner to bloody well act like a professional and keep his mouth shut.

She thought about Mark's account and thought 'not bad, for a guy,' nodding in appreciation. She noted one difference between men and women telling a story

as a woman will remember whole chunks of dialogue and will recount it. A man will summarise and, sometimes, miss out subtleties. Fenner of course was different

with his devil's brew of truth and falsehoods all stirred up together. In a twisted kind of way, he had to know the truth so that he could know what to

lie about and what to leave alone. Still, she was ready for him this time.

"Will you come to my office, Jim Fenner." Karen cut in on Fenner as he was giving Colin Hedges the benefit of his long experience of jailcraft.

"I've got other duties to do, Karen." Fenner replied, not wanting this irritating woman to boss him about yet again.

"Now, Jim. This can't wait." Karen glared at him from under her blond fringe.

Fenner bowed reluctantly to the inevitable but deliberately ambled down the corridor to piss that Betts woman off as much as he could.

"Right, Jim. I've just talked to Mark Waddle about the row between the two of you and I'm telling you the same to you as I'm telling you now. I know there's

been bad blood between the two of you and part of it is about me. For the record, I'm telling you both, that no matter what has gone on in personal lives

between me and you and me and Mark, it is over on both counts. So the pair of you are going to have to act as professionals between each other and both

of you to me. I know very well, Jim Fenner, the way you can stir things up and cause arguments and, of the two of you, you are much more likely to be guilty

of this than Mark, and you are the one in the wrong this time. So I'm telling you that one foot over the line and I'll make a disciplinary matter out of

it, got that clear."

"You're not going to listen to my side of the story, are you Karen," Fenner replied sulkily like a spoilt boy getting a telling off. "Then again you never

have."

For one split second, Karen's fair mindedness made her feel guilty that she was condemning him without hearing his side of the story. Then a memory flash

came to the rescue recalling Fenner's wheedling insidious drip drip approach that persuaded her that 'Stewart has this thing about him and was concocting

charges of sexual harassment' She had believed it all against her better instincts right until that fateful night when she went to his bedsit as she felt

sorry for the way Grayling was victimising him. She was so close to apologising to him that she had a sick feeling as of nearly falling over a precipice

and recovering her balance just in time.

"Tell me what you have to say Jim "she said stiffly."But remember, you blew your credibility the way you used to bang on about Helen Stewart accusing you

of sexually harrassing her and I was fool enough to believe you until I had the same treatment off you that you also inflicted on Helen. Not my fault if

a habitual liar gets found out and now you want to believe yet another likely story."

Fenner's face went red and his scowl told her to her delight that she had said exactly the right thing and had expertly blocked his attempt to manipulate

her. Nothing enraged him more than the 'won't believers' who can see right through him.

"If you want to get back with Waddle, there's nothing I can do about it. It's obvious you're going to believe him over me so I'm wasting my time begging

to you to be treated fairly. I'll keep out of his way if it's going to land me in the shit every time."

Fenner slunk out of the room so quickly that Karen did not think to pull him up over his attitude and the barefaced cheek of the man. Still, he'd never

sincerely apologised in his life so why should he start now? She'd won that minor battle and every little victory helps.

She reached out for a cigarette and puffed at it in satisfaction.

Scene Eight

Yvonne was lying on her own on her cell bunk, without moving. It happened to all of the girls from time to time, she reflected. Sometimes, she was more

cheerful than she expected of herself from recent events. On her good days, feelings of strength and power inside her would radiate outwards to the rest

of the girls around her. She could see it in the smiles of the other girls and the scowls on the faces of the screws as they ran up against the Atkins

brains and sharp tongue. Nothing made her feel better than when she had something to exercise her mind on, like planning the Larkhall Tabernackle Choir

to get the girls their visiting time back and to put one over the was then that she was in her element and the lightning quick thinking alone

gave her a buzz. Standard piss taking of the likes of Bodybag was a bit of mental limbering up ready for the serious work.

At other times, no matter how comforting the company of Babs, Denny, or the Julies, she had this desire to crawl away to her own cell rather than be the

life and soul of the party like she was bleeding expected to be. The other girls let her disappear into her own cell with no comment but real sympathy

as it could be them next week and usually was. It wasn't as if any particular event had got her down, like when she figured out that Charlie had done the

dirty on her. No, it was the unaccountable grey slide into a depression where nothing and noone could comfort her. She could never put her finger on it

either far less control it. What was it Nikki had once said? "It's this shithole. It does something to you." Nikki had explained to her that just the one

little thing would get to you as you had all the time in the world to brood and blow things out of proportion. Somehow, out there, someone somewhere was

planning to do something nasty to you. With bastards like Fenner around and his new weedy hanger on, Hedges, this was for real.

At nighttimes, she hated the feeling of the narrow bunk and the thin quilt that she wrapped around herself when the temperature of Larkhall plunged to freezing

level, so that you could see the steam of your own breath in the air. She didn't want to think of the long ago king sized luxury bed, the warm feeling

inside her after having had a shag off Charlie the night before and the brilliant white warm bedroom that her sleepy eyes used to open onto first thing.

No, despite her decorative touches, the rough whitewashed bare bricked wall of her prison cell at Larkhall stared at her from about six feet away and told

her unconscious that this was not home. To her conscious mind, her luxurious past was abolished as if it had never been and her present surroundings were

normality, to be lived through. With luck, the day that she woke up to was averagely average, just like the day before and the day before that and if you

kept feeling that way, you were doing bloody well.

She knew that some of the girls turned to each other for sexual comfort. She was never sure if they were that way before they came to prison or being permanently

without a shag turned women that way. Before she got sent down, lesbians were something she read about in the magazines if she cared to skim it. She'd

grown in a straight up, straight down world where if you were a girl growing up, you played the field with the boys till you found the right man and settled

down with him and brought up a family. And the man you met was from the same Eastend community. This didn't change even if she and Charlie had come into

the money and moved out to the suburbs into a flash new mansion and an apartment in Spain. No, she was still the same Eastend girl she had always been.

This didn't stop your fella being a bit of a bastard from time to time but the making up made the arguments worthwhile and Charlie used to be good at that.

That is, till she got banged up here at Larkhall Prison.

From time to time, out of the corner of her eye out of focus, some woman would have her arms wrapped round another woman and her initial feelings of uncomfortableness

had faded away. Like the rest of Larkhall, this was normal.

Over many months and by slow degrees, Denny had taken her place in her large maternal heart. It was understood between them that Yvonne ran protection for

her in much the same way as she had done for her kids. That bewildered lack of comprehension expression on her face always made her smile and want to protect

her as she knew that the likes of Dockley had ruthlessly exploited her slow mind. She had seen Denny through the pain when her own mother had once again

let her down and knew that Denny trusted her implicitly. There was a strange puritanical streak and split thinking in both of them that had made both of

them reluctant to talk of sexual matters. You didn't do that between mother and daughter, it just happened or it didn't. The other side of this split was

that Yvonne's large maternal heart and sensitive ear were ready to offer comfort to the heartaches suffered by her children or substitute children. That

was what mums were for in her orthodox world. Because of that, she knew that Denny had been in love with Shaz and Shaz had felt the same about Denny from

the odd time that Denny came to her to have a good cry on her shoulder over some argument she'd had with Shaz . For that reason, she accepted Shaz although

to her mind she pissed her off from time to time as a whining immature little brat. Nevertheless, she too, came to be erratically under the very spacious

Atkins protective umbrella.

There weren't that many straight down the line people who had real brains around, these days. Nikki Wade had been one but she was long gone. She'd been

a good mate with as much brains and toughness around as anyone. She really missed her company these days and the thought took shape in her daydreaming

that she was really looking for that sense of other in her life.

Still, Yvonne thought to herself, a solitary sunbeam breaking through the clouds, she's getting good company off Karen Betts these days. It's a change for

the Wing Governor to casually pass by her cell on her rounds and pop in for a chat. For a screw in a uniform, she at least has a bleeding brain to think

with- she was ahead of her when they were talking about that Lynford lot coming in. Funny that these days when she pokes her head round the door, she knows

that she's not up for a bollocking but she gets a feeling of pleasure to see her.

Yvonne reached for a cigarette, flicked her cigarette lighter and deeply inhaled the nicotine. She knew that this habit wasn't doing her lungs much good

but the tiniest little pleasure was precious when so much of life felt denied to her as the faint glow of the cigarette end was a pinprick illumination

of the total darkness of her cell.

Scene Nine

Eric Bostock's shiny new large car saw fit to grace the presence of Larkhall Prison's cramped car parking space and force the next late comer to hunt around

for a space in a sidestreet. But then again, pushing other people out of the way without thought for others came second nature to him. By the time Mark

Waddle made his way on the familiar trudge up the sideroad to the prison, Eric Bostock had finished his chat to Grayling and both disappeared into Grayling's

lair for a cup of tea and a talk discussing the "radical restructuring of Larkhall Prison" far out of view from those who were to be their victims, PO

and prisoner alike. It was the way modern management operated though, these days.

All Mark was conscious of was idle wondering what visitor was let loose round Larkhall Prison as the motor was well out of anyone's price range, even bloody

Neil 'keep fit' Grayling. He shrugged his shoulders and collected his keys at the gate, same as any usual day in the prison.

"The library looks as if someone's cleaned it up," Mark spoke lightly to Babs in passing as he was on library duty that day."Not the same dump as when I

was last round these parts."

He sat at his freshly polished desk, looking round at the fresh selection of books, whether romances or the more obscure offerings scrounged from clearouts

of libraries on the outside. Even the old favourites like the dog eared Mills and Boone were relatively fresh and the paintwork looked sharp and new.

Babs quietly closed the book she had finished reading and carefully slid it back it in the rightful place on the shelf. In her world, books were to be treated

with respect, as a source of learning even while the prison to which it belonged had long since forfeited any like respect. Only then was she able to collect

her thoughts and answer Mark's casual question.

"Hasn't anyone ever told you about the explosion, Mr Waddle." Babs spoke delicately. She closed her eyes in anguish as Mark's casual words had exposed raw

nerve ends.

"The explosion, Babs?" Mark repeated Babs last few words blankly.

Babs briefly looked at Mr Waddle's expression of incomprehension and closed her eyes tight shut. His question forced her own mind back to the shattering

explosion that shook her world apart, the concussion, that had left her barely unconscious and every atom of strength utterly drained from her. Visual

flashes invaded her present world of Julie Saunders as she had put her arms round her, her lips moving soundlessly and an expression of concern for her

though the Lord knew what she was concerned about. The smell of smoke seemed very real as it had poured through from the corridor. The acrid taste of it

had choked her lungs and, in making her cough, drained what little strength she had. Through closed eyelids, split second flashes of her sight could see

all the others as they had rushed around in panic. Her senses could feel the unbearable feeling of being trapped inside a confined space. If she could

rush towards the way out and move her body in that direction, her mind screamed out, but her body had a curious feeling of lassitude which held her in

a cotton wool vice like grip which……………..as she later woke screaming out of in the middle of the night, black pitch night after night while the Julies

came to rescue her and comfort very real flames pouring through the four bed dorm she had moved into were surely not real, were they?

Babs opened her eyes and she saw through Mark's eyes, the spick and span modern prison library, not the horror visions etched on the insides of her eyelids.

"It was a terrible business, Mark. A prisoner called Snowball Merriman who came her just after you left, concealed a home made bomb in the corridor to the

library so that she could escape. Me, the Julies, Al, Denny, and Buki were trapped in the fire and nearly got burnt alive before the fire brigade came

to the rescue. Shaz Wiley came to visit Denny for the day and died in the fire. Oh yes, Roisin Connor and Cassie Tyler pushed Mr Grayling on a trolley

out of the fire as he was the most hurt of all of us. They received a free pardon for their bravery."

The skin crawled all over Mark as Babs in her 'stiff upper lip' accents of Middle England recounted in a matter of fact way, such horrors that he could

not conceive of.

"That's absolutely horrible, Babs. I'm really really sorry that I was so thoughtless. The news about the fire at Larkhall went all round the prison service.

Only I never realised that it took place here. I was under a lot of pressure at work at the time." Mark explained, looking away from Babs. He felt perfectly

terrible that he remembered so little about it. He ought to have known about it at the time. This had happened at the worst point of his ill treatment

at Bradgate when his world had shrunk to the daily battle of facing another day at work. Bad news from afar, even if involved somewhere some place where

he had been intimately involved was seen as if through a fogged up pair of binoculars viewed from the wrong way round. Certainly the other PO's at Bradgate

hadn't even broken their wall of silence to talk directly to him about it, much less asked for his opinion. No, the 'Sun' had written their crudely inaccurate

version of events and they took their lead from that paper. If it was in the news, it must be the truth. .

"That's all right, Mr Waddle, you weren't to know." Babs smiled forgivingly.

Tears came to Mark's eyes as, next to the pure gentle Christian charity of this very civilised middle aged woman, the hard brutality and cynicism of Bradgate

flashed back to him. This woman was a finer human being than any of his former so-called former workmates could ever be.

"What happened to this Snowball Merriman. Sounds a nastier piece of work than Maxi Purvis, Shell Dockley rolled into one. Even they wouldn't stoop that

low."

"Snowball Merriman forced Miss Betts at gunpoint to drive her out of Larkhall prison to meet Ritchie Atkins, Yvonne's son only they were intercepted by

gunmen. Snowball Merriman was killed while Ritchie Atkins was wounded. I would not wish to speak ill of the dead, but……….." And Babs's level tones tailed

off, discreetly drawing a veil over her involvement as spy for Yvonne.

"Yvonne's son, I never knew she had a son, Babs." Mark shook her head in bewilderment. He had heard Yvonne talk so many times about her daughter Lauren

and he had seen her occasionally on visits. Mark picked up straightaway on the sheer absence of any past mention of Ritchie by Yvonne for all those months

he had known her.

"He had been abroad in Spain as he'd had a disagreement with the family. The first any of us knew of this was when he came to visit and sending bouquets

of flowers for Yvonne….and later on did the dirty on her. She's been upset and depressed since then." Babs explained politely.

"And Karen Betts. What happened to her in the kidnap." Mark asked, an expression of concern on his face.

"She was fine as far as could be heard. She wasn't hurt or anything." Babs smiled kindly.

"That's good. I mean she is a good Wing Governor……..and you, Babs how have you coped since the fire." Mark smiled in a non committal way before switching

the conversation away from Karen to a far more uncomplicated matter.

"You learn to manage, Mr Waddle. And welcome home back at Larkhall." Babs finished with a smile before she went out of the door in her sedate unhurried

fashion.

Scene Ten

Mark's feeling of buoyant well being in himself and the world around him lasted while he paced the corridor, one, two, three four, five and turned the corner

to see his worst nightmare in human form.

Right in front of him was that well remembered hard face as if a psychopath sculptor had carved a face out of solid rock with a chisel and lump hammer and

had included the suggestion of all human feelings except those of humanity. Fortunately his attention was turned away from him because he was quietly chatting

to Grayling who was in his most blatant arse licking mode. The hand gestures tried to convey fervent agreement with the bastard and his smile was that

of the most unscrupulous second hand car salesman. He didn't need to overhear the conversations though, like most devious bastards around, they had that

facility to lower their voices so that they couldn't be overheard.

"Here, Mr Waddle, just who is that suit over there? Don't say, he's a film producer and they're going to film this place like that time that those clowns

came round and Dockley escaped in their van." Yvonne greeted him with a smile. She was careful just which screw to pump for information to add to her intelligence

network and the fact that she asked him at all was a compliment which was not lost on Mark.

"Don't ask me. I only work here," Mark said shortly.

Yvonne looked at the man with real concern. Nice guy though he is, he upheld the shaky authority and public reputation of the screws as best he could. This

momentary dropping of his guard told her enough and gave her a feeling of impending danger. Somehow, in a perverse way, it pushed her depression of last

night to the back of her concerns. She'd got bigger things to worry than her place in the bleeding universe, or so she reasoned to herself.

"Are you sure you're all right. You look as you've just seen a bleeding ghost?" Mark registered Yvonne's softer tones and concerned expression but the engrained

stiff upper lip instinct, so quick that he had no time to challenge it, took charge of and spoke with Mark's mouth and voice. While his voice said one

thing, part of his mind was grateful that Yvonne, like Babs, cared for him as a concerned human being.

"Everything's fine, Yvonne. If you will excuse me, I'm off to war……,I mean, tell Miss Betts of the visitor that she is expecting." For the first few words,

Mark covered himself with a smile that was more of a grimace, a mere clumsily draped façade over his real feelings and one which his honesty was unable

to sustain.

"Then I won't get in your way, Mr Waddle," Yvonne replied with none of her usual bantering style. She wanted to think things over.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Mark Waddle," came that well remembered hated voice." Fancy seeing you here. I've heard a lot about you from my brother John."

It seemed an eternity while Mark grappled with the fact that there was not only one monstrous deformed specimin of humanity which he had escaped but that

he had a twin brother. And what is worse was that he had travelled one to two hundred miles to escape him and what he represented only for his clone brother

to come back to haunt him. Mark looked desperately for an answer to conjure out of his mind or the space before him to work out who this guy was and why

is he here. Then some sheer chance or guardian angel shifted his thinking to tell himself if he didn't know, why and it was not him at fault for not knowing

but this guy was at fault for telling him by wearing a visitor's badge. For once, the instinctive mindset of rules and regulations came to the rescue for

a good cause.

"Mr Grayling, don't you think that this man, whoever he is and wherever he is from should wear a name badge like any other visitor here."

Grayling's face tightened as this troublemaker was committing the unpardonable sin, showing him up before someone he wanted to impress.

"For your information, Eric Bostock is Chairman of Lynford Securities, a private company who area is giving the go ahead to put in a bid to take over the

running of the prison and drag it into the twentieth century." snapped Grayling.

"You want to watch who you're speaking to, Mark Waddle. From what I've seen so far, this is a typical Victorian prison. We plan to introduce changes around

here."

"So who's going to be in charge around, you or Mr Grayling?" Mark asked with a broad smile.

"Come on, Neil." Eric Bostock's face coloured. "We've got more work to do. You'd better make sure I see the Wing Governor on G Wing and soon. Time costs

money, you know."

"Oh, I'll find Karen Betts for you, Mr Grayling." Mark said, rather pointedly ignoring Eric Bostock." Where shall I say to ask her to go to."

"To my office," Grayling replied curtly.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Karen, you've got a guy in from Lynford Securities waiting to see you." Mark ran into Karen 's office with no preliminary knock on the door as was the

custom, talking nine times to the dozen in an incoherent stream of words. "He's called Eric Bostock, the twin brother of that bastard that was my Governing

Governor at Bradgate. You know the one I was telling you about. "

"Hold on, hold on, Mark. Are you telling me that someone is walking around on my wing and I haven't been given advance notice of it……" Karen said, beginning

to get angry.

"Well, don't blame me, Karen. I'm only the Senior Officer and I don't get told these things." Mark turned his total fear into anger at Karen. There she

was, blaming him for something again which wasn't his fault but then again, why change the habits of the past few years.

"I don't mean you, Mark. I mean Grayling. After all, I'm Wing Governor and nobody told me either. I'm going to see Neil about this." Karen's mouth was pursed

tight fuelled by determination and outrage at what must be either Grayling's incompetence or a deliberate ploy to keep her in the dark and catch her at

her worst.

"You be careful, Karen. This one is a total and utter bastard." Mark advised with real concern as to what she was rushing headlong into."And he's treading

all over the wing without a name badge, breaking all the rules in the book and just because he's with Grayling."

"You might be surprised that I am actually quite good at handling total male bastards. I don't need you, Mark Waddle, being the knight in shining armour.

I'll manage. In the meantime, you take yourself to the PO's mess for a bit and take it easy. That's an order."

Mark coloured but said nothing. Even while he was trying to help Karen out and give her the benefit of his experience, up come the shutters and she has

to come over as all hard. And we're supposed to be on the same bloody side on this one. Having a female boss who was your one time lover had its complications

that a male boss who was a total thug and a bully didn't have. This just messed with his head.

A part of Karen was beginning to regret that Mark had come back to Larkhall. All their latest row had achieved, superficially about nothing, was to bring

into her mind a whole confusing mixture of emotions about the past and that what was dead and buried in her mind was coming to life from beyond the grave.

That habitual sense of self-discipline reasserted itself and she had to bury those human feelings while she was on the job.

She had more important fish to fry. But Mark was right about one thing. Eric Bostock should wear identification like any other visitor as it's the number

one rule in the book on internal security.

Scene Eleven

From the middle reaches of Yvonne's memory was dragged the snatch of conversation she had had with Karen………"Lynford Securities are a private security firm

who are putting in a bid to take over the running of this place. There will be a clean sweep of some of us, if not all of us………." She knew instinctively

that that was what she was looking for and explained the sight of Karen striding down towards Grayling's office faster than she had ever seen her move.

It didn't explain how come Mark Waddle was scared shitless, though. First he runs off to Karen Betts' office and then she zooms off to Grayling's room

as if she were jet propelled.

"Ah, Karen" Grayling's hearty voice and expansive gesture did a very good imitation of open hearted hospitality." Come in and take a seat."

Karen was on the point of telling that sly bastard that she would prefer to stand but considered that, if she was going to have a first class row, she would

prefer to sit. This would be the one and only time she would prefer to play his game. To compensate, she ripped open a cigarette pack and ostentatiously

lit a cigarette.

"Why have I not been informed in advance of the visit by Lynford Securities and by whose authority does a perfect stranger walk all over my wing and break

the basic rule in the book by not wearing a security pass." Karen demanded quietly.

"Right trouble maker you are, I see……….Karen Betts." Eric Bostock replied, peering at her own name badge as his memory failed to remember the name of this

Wing Governor of the worst of Larkhall, this infamous G wing.

"No, actually." Karen smiled tightly." Larkhall runs on some pretty basic rules that are there to avoid trouble. When a visitor comes round Larkhall if

it is made obvious who that person is, then the prison officers will be sure to look after that person's security and the security of the prison. We have

had enough problems with prisoners like Snowball Merriman trying to escape, pretending to be a nun from the local convent. Don't want a repeat of that

episode, do we? As you said one time, we are supposed to convince area that we have listened and learned" Karen argued forcefully. .

"Even if I am escorting Eric Bostock round." Grayling frowned back at Karen."Or does someone have to certify for who I am. That is the sort of jobsworth

attitude that will be changing around here very shortly, won't it Eric?"

"Exactly Neil," Eric Bostock said as the other partner in the double act "Just because we make rules for the running of the prison doesn't mean that we

can't change them for what we need, when we need to. The main point is that you knew I was coming and I knew it as well."

"Oh, it is, is it………and why didn't you tell me in advance about this visit, Neil. You haven't explained that, have you."

"There is such a thing as a need to know, Karen. You knew that the visit was due shortly and I am taking it on myself to do the guided tour, not you. Eric

was going to detain you from your busy duties for a short while and….."and Grayling raised his arm so that he could check his watch and see if he was still

on schedule…….."I am due to introduce Eric Bostock to Jim Fenner, our Principal Officer in two minutes time. He's the only one of G Wing management team

you haven't met yet."

Karen was livid with anger to see how unscrupulously these two scheming bastards had used her righteous anger against herself and alarmed that Jim bloody

Fenner was going to be given a clear run to repeat history and crawl his way up to the new boss. She was beginning to regret her hasty words to Mark without

going soft on him. All through this exchange of views, she had noticed an interesting prospectus called 'Lynford Securities – what we can do for prisoners'

with a picture on the front with happy smily faces. She wanted to get her hands on this for what it was worth.

"So what have you to offer Larkhall Prison, Eric Bostock." Karen asked softly.

"New blood, fresh investment, opportunities for those who want to take advantage of them, radical ideas………"

"In other words, bring in the boot boys and get rid of existing staff, CCTV cameras, understaffing, shit wages and whatever you do, don't ask awkward questions,"

Karen Betts shot back…….."despite the fact that the women in this prison are not an easy lot to manage, mothers separated from their children, women cutting

up, a dysfunctional system and not enough POs already to give the real help that's really needed. Might I take a look at that prospectus, Mr Bostock?"

"Once again Karen, this book is my department not yours," and Grayling shuffled papers over the top of it."You will be informed what will transpire in due

course. Come on, it's time to go, Eric."

Karen's sense of total disgust and total loathing had boiled up to such a pitch that she knew that if she stayed any longer, she would really do or say

something she would regret. She had deeply absorbed a sense of institutional discipline from the years in the Prison Service like an invisible straight

jacket but at this moment, her anger was such that this was threatening to burst asunder. That was going to do her or the prison officers and prisoners

alike under her care any good so she found the best alternative. She shot out of Grayling's office in search of Yvonne. She needed to talk.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yvonne was lying on her bunk reading a magazine when she heard a rapid clack clack of heels outside her cell door and the door was unceremoniously flung

wide and shut behind her. She raised her eyebrows to see a very flustered Karen who was bottling down some very strong emotion.

"God a miniature bottle of vodka or two, Yvonne." Karen shot out and." Don't worry, I'll replace them."

"Isn't that against prison regulations, Karen Betts?" Yvonne asked guardedly, her mind whizzing overtime guessing what has caused the ultra correct Karen

Betts to make such a request implying a breach of prison rules and, still more amazingly, to collude with it. The planets were lurching violently out of

their orbit that had steered them round the sun or so it seemed.

"Rules are meant for the guidance of wise women and for the obedience of fools" Karen's obscure reply puzzled Yvonne as Karen reached for a blue plastic

mug."Come on, we'll take a swig in turns. This is as near as we'll get to going out for a drink."

Yvonne waited patiently until the bottle was cracked and they took a swig of the spirits neat."

"If you're wondering if I've suddenly gone mad, Yvonne. I have in a way, mad and angry that I've been done down and my future is being trussed up like a

parcel and that I'm totally powerless against it with Lynfords coming in…………."

Karen's intense voice and blue eyes penetrated Yvonne's very being as her voice sped on down her storyline like an out of control express train through

the dark of the night. Somehow the vodka gave her that release that she needed to speak and she was never more grateful for the company of an understanding

ear as now. She had been staring at some vision that only she could see until she focussed on Yvonne and came back to reality. She blushed slightly, feeling

ashamed that she was burdening her woes on another person, a woman on the wrong side of the prison bars as well, separated from her daughter and her son

gone to the bad and recovering from his wounds somewhere in the great unknown.

"I'm really sorry for dumping my problems on you, Yvonne, but it will be no better for you or the rest of the prisoners. I told you about it last time I

saw you, remember."

"I remember all right, Karen Betts."Yvonne looked back with her all seeing eyes."But what's changed since then."

"Only because it seems more real. And I'm being shut out of what's going on." Karen answered more evenly."But you take if from me that someone like Bostock

will love Fenner. And he'll save his own skin as usual."

"Well, at least Mark Waddle is back. You both used to be close, Karen. He'll be a help."

Karen closed her eyes as Yvonne could see Karen's breathing racing out of control. Jesus, this isn't the cool and calm Karen Betts when she first came here.

Her heart melted in sympathy for her. She had mentioned Mark Waddle as a nice guy who should be able to back her up but she seemed to have made matters

worse. She couldn't work that one out.

"That's a long story, Yvonne. I can't tell you about it now but I've a feeling I soon will. Would you be up to listening to me sometime? I don't want to

come over as some neurotic self pitying cow forever putting on other people. That is not Karen Betts, or at least I don't think it is?"

Yvonne was incredibly moved by words Karen used to deny her some invisible accuser when it was obvious that she was turning that criticism on herself. Karen's

eyes looked at her for an honesty from her that heals.

"You don't do self pity, Karen. And I'll listen to you when you're ready. About Mark Waddle and Lynfords, yeah."

Karen nodded, gave her a brilliant smile and drained the plastic mug with a gulp.

"I've gotta go. Got a wing to run. And thanks, Yvonne. I'll replace the drink tomorrow."

Karen left the cell with a spring in her step, smiling at Yvonne who felt that this was a new experience for her sharing a drink of illegal vodka with Karen

Betts. She felt somehow whole and with some vague purpose in her life.

Scene Twelve

"Getting in with Bostock is as easy as falling off a log, Colin" Fenner bragged."It's the lads running this nick for future and not the bloody sisterhood.

Betts' days are numbered, mark my words from what I've heard from Bostock. Still, you and me are all right so long as we don't get on the wrong side of

him…….and if you keep in with me." Fenner added meaningfully.

They were sitting in a discreet corner of the dimly lit Prison Officer's Social Club which smelt of decades of stale cigarette smoke and cheap beer. Sometimes

the fug made it difficult to see to the other side of the room but everyone got used to that.

"I know which side my bread's buttered on. Who knows, we might get the chance of another 'fishing expedition' in Amsterdam and no ex-cons around to mess

everything up. Think the new boss would let us get away with it?" Colin asked eagerly.

"Whoh then, Col. Lets play things cagey. Got to get our feet properly under the table so to speak when all the dead wood is cleared out of the way. Course,

there will probably some other lads come in from some of the nicks they're running already but this is our turf, not theirs. As long as we stick to the

rules and don't balls anything up, we'll be all right."

"That means we won't have a cats chance in hell. Betts is so bloody politically correct as it is." groaned Colin, his dreams of women on call starting to

fade before his eyes."You can't make a single move on any of the younger women without the likes of Atkins threatening to scratch your bloody eyes out."

"I didn't say what rules," laughed Fenner."Rule number one is we do what Bostock says and don't get caught out. Apart from that, we make up the rules as

we go along. It means Prison Officers on top, on the landings and in the cells after dark."

Colin Hedges laughed along with him. To him, Jim Fenner was a real Jack the Lad and he remembering him promising him 'fanny heaven' as they strolled down

the red light district of Amsterdam eyeing up all the women in the front windows.

"But will all the lads think the same way. I'm getting a lot of earache from that new bloke, Mark Waddle. He seems to be right pally with all the cons as

if he's some conquering hero. What do you make of him."

"Me and Mark Waddle go back a long way," burped Fenner as his pint of beer settled uneasily in his stomach."He's another 'do gooder' like Betts. After I

pissed her off as she was getting right on my tits, you know the kind, nag, nag, nag, he moves in on her and gets fooled by all the sob stories she was

telling about me and starts giving me a load of grief. I tell you, it got awkward with the two of them ganging up on me. Luckily, their cosy little relationship

went tits up and she moved onto someone else, Atkins son. All that got kept very hush hush."

Colin Hedges stared at him open mouthed and couldn't believe his ears. You never know what really goes on in people's lives as he had never noticed what

was going on around him. Luckily, he had Jim Fenner to see him right. He wished he had his obvious confidence and he had to pretend he was all tough and

hard like all the others.

"Can I get you another one, Jim." Colin asked him.

"Yeah, I could do with another. Pint of bitter, same as the last one."

While Colin was waiting at the bar, Fenner mulled things over. This Eric Bostock was just the person to sort out this dump. He knew that he had made a favourable

impression and could tell that if he played his cards right, he could end up a suit full time. He'd dished the dirt on Betts who Bostock wasn't keen on.

Only thing Bostock made clear was that he had to work and talk a different language than he was used to.

"I've got no time for old dinasaurs who work by the rule book and won't pull their weight as we've always done it this way. Time costs money, you get that,

Jim."Bostock told him confidingly.

"Absolutely, I couldn't agree with you more." Fenner said admiringly.

"You either got on board this train or you lie down on the track and get run over. There's no third choice with Lynfords around here. I'll get this bid

sewn up with your Area people and we'll change this place around. Clear out some of the dead wood around here. You're not in the union, are you." Bostock

finished suspiciously.

"Good lord no." Fenner laughed. He'd seen the POA go to pot when Sylvia left and it was like paying insurance money with no chance of a payout. He'd better

send in his resignation straight away if this was the way the wind was blowing. He couldn't think why he'd not done it years ago but, if he was a fault,

it wasn't looking too closely at his payslip and seeing that his money could stretch further. It was only for old times sake as Sylvia used to bang on

about it and you never knew when it would come in useful. Really, all the insurance he ever needed was being in with the right people.

"Cos we don't recognise unions. At my place, unless I can see the sweat burn off you, you're not working hard enough. We can't carry passengers, those who

swing it on the sick, those who moan on about family commitments, and those who come back just that little bit late from break. They're the first out the

door even if we don't weed them out first."

Fifteen minutes later, Fenner and Colin had downed their pints and Fenner turned round to him.

"Come on, we'd best be getting back now. Time costs money, you know."

Colin couldn't believe his ears. Fenner was always one to stretch the breaks out a bit and had always encouraged him to do the same. There are always the

Di Barkers around who'll cover for you if you smooch them up a bit. Fenner turning conscientious was a novelty. Besides, he had another reason for not

going back early.

"I'll be a bit later, Jim. I've got a bit of gutsache. I'll be back in a bit."

"You be quick enough. This place can't carry passengers you know, Col. This place is going to change. Take a tip from me."

Colin was in the place that he craved more than anything else even if it was a scruffy toilet in the PO Social Club. Heating up a spoon, and dissolving

the brown stuff, filling up his syringe and tieing off was something that he'd got down to a fine art. He wasn't sure if he got off more on the fixation

of the needle or the thrill of danger of imminent detection. It was a craving that peaked at the moment of injection and faded away into a dreamy state

of untouchability. He stared up into the white bright light for ages or so it seemed. Heroin was the ultimate buzz or so his mate told him and he needed

that to feel like a man and stop worrying about everything. Presently, he tucked his syringe away, looked at himself in the mirror to try and feel normal.

Shit, he's late. He's got to go back to the wing and help out with a piss test on one of the cons.

Scene Thirteen

The workshop at Larkhall had been a hive of activity as never before. Phyl had surprised everyone including herself in adapting her rusty skills in working

on Formula One racing cars to the more limited facilities of Larkhall Prison. Karen had made good her promise to arrange for materials to be supplied by

Larkhall Prison's works department and the unpromising junk of Virginia O'Kane's old wheelchair. By sheer hard work and slog, a nice shiny metal motorised

wheelchair took shape with curved shiny metal and an engine that would take Buki anywhere. To her surprise, the motley team of amateur mechanics followed

her lead enthusiastically banged and hammered away. At nighttime, they slept like logs after the aches and pains in their wrists and arms and legs had

worn off. They were building the vehicle for Buki's son Lennox for no other reason than what had happened to Lennox could have happened to any of their

own sons and daughters, or sisters and brothers. There was no thought of brownie points, or how it would help towards their release date. Not while they

were all together on this one. It gave them a sense of unity instead of the habitual shift of relationships, of friendships, petty irritations and major

blowups which the prevailing atmosphere of boredom and mental stagnation created.

"Denny," drawled Bev, her hands held out in front of her palms together in her characteristic pose,"You have such a positive artistic flair with the red

trim set against the yellow background."

"Wicked," Denny's big smile split her face.

"And the rest of you have excelled yourselves." Bev added hastily. While she had designs on cultivating Denny's artistic talent, and their own depleted

bank accounts, it did not do to have favourites. Still, the spray painting had been carried out with unexpected precision and the dark blue, the black

and the vivid yellow contrasted just nicely. The last layer of paint hardened just nicely and the crowd who had worked so hard at putting the motorised

vehicle for Buki felt justifiably proud of himself.

"Well done, girls," a hated voice broke in on the crowd and a series of handclaps like pistol shots "That's the spirit. You've done Buki's son proud. It's

not every day that such team spirit is shown these days."

"Team spirit," Julie Saunders echoed. "Is Mister Fenner feeling right. Not had a bump on his head?"

"His head." Came Julie Johnson's delayed echo.

"Are you wanting to join in this enterprise, Mr isn't any remuneration in this except all of us knowing what a sterling job we have done to

help Buki's poor unfortunate child." Phyl drawled pushing a lock of curly brown hair out of her eyes. Superficially she had all the manner of a more extravagantly

gushing vicar but underneath she was damned if they were going to let this oily jackbooted creep insinuate his way into their schemes. There was a steely

glint in her eye and undertone in her voice that was the very hard iron hand underneath the velvet glove.

"Jumped up maggot." Phil muttered under her breath."Bet he calls the AA out to open up the car boot and top up the radiator."

"You've got me wrong, girls" Fenner's best disarming smile was deployed to fool the naïve and unwary." I'm just trying to get you a bit of public recognition.

Trust me, girls and leave it all up to me." And Fenner loped off out of the workshop as a man on a mission.

"Up yours," Bev exclaimed in a loud theatrical voice that made all the others chuckle.

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"Where's that slimebag going, Karen," Yvonne spoke out of the corner of her mouth with her lips hardly moving."I get uneasy when the bastard's smiling.

That means he's up to something."

"Don't ask me, Yvonne. After all, I'm only the Wing Governor." Karen's dry tones responded with a sense of easy cameraderie that had deepened since their

illicit drinking session. At another time, Yvonne would have taken that as a sarcastic thrust in her direction in the days when it was us and them. She

had now gained the insight that Nikki had acquired before her that the world of the screws has as many complexities as her side of the prison bars. "He's

gone to Grayling's office. You keep your spies out and I'll keep mine."

It was on the tip of her tongue to say 'You mean Mark Waddle' but after their last exchange she thought she'd better keep schtum on this one. She saw Mark

start to walk in their direction and Karen turned on her heel and walked briskly off with a 'see you later, Yvonne' flung over her shoulder.

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"You have an excellent idea, Jim." Grayling exclaimed."I can visualise this in my mind. Larkhall Prison, enterprising and caring in partnership with Lynford

Security. Care in the community for a disabled little boy. The camera loves children and animals. A famous celebrity to be featured in 'Heat' Magazine

to give high profile press attention with the prison in the background. And most of all, we shall demonstrate to Area that we have turned Larkhall Prison

around. And you won't be forgotten when Lynfords start recruiting properly and want to recruit a dedicated cadre of Prison Officers, new uniform, new appearance

to take forward a mission statement that a new revitalised Larkhall Prison is on course." Grayling's eyes glittered. He was never so happy as he was now

with a new goal rather than carry on with the same old drudgery and having to watch his back from Area.

This was one of the blackest periods in his life when he came back from sick leave and went to his first area meeting to see the sniggers round the table

from his fellow Governing Governors. He felt that he was out of the limelight and all the attention was off him and the Area Director was loudly singing

the praises of the latest enterprises of his hated rival. Grayling was last year's model. That hurt more than anything else.

"I am sure that this radical PR operation will see a new Larkhall." Jim Fenner smoothly uttered the buzzwords of the moment. "This will be a day that I

am sure that none of us will forget."

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"You mean you've gone ahead and arranged for this Lynfords lot to come in and transform the handing over of Buki's vehicle into some grotesque circus,"

Karen Betts's scornful tones reacted in violent disgust to Grayling as he announced it to her in passing at the end of the Wing governor's meeting under

"Any Other Business."

"I'm afraid you're out of luck on this one, Karen." Grayling frowned."Area have approved it as they have felt for some months that Larkhall is become an

embarrassing liability to the prison system. Anything that can improve the image of the prison has to be welcomed."

"Oh so the women who have worked hard on this project had it in mind to be public relations officers for Larkhall Prison. Have you taken into account how

they'll feel about the matter? And, by the way, exactly what are Lynfords putting into the event apart from grabbing some free publicity. As far as I understand,

all the materials have come from the work department which have nothing to do with Lynfords."

Grayling pursed his lips and said nothing and stalked out of the room.

Scene Fourteen

"Bout time some of the dead wood is being cleared out." Fenner held forth while Colin studied his shoes studiously. "When Lynfords have come in here, they'll

turn things around"

"Have you had a silicon chip implant recently." Karen asked in a puzzled questioning tone." like when you first went to see Bostock. For years you've been

the one to 'keep things running smoothly, remember? Even the time you were crawling up Grayling's arse, you've always been the same mysogynist pig that

you've ever been. Now that Lynfords are around, it's as if you've been abducted by aliens and talking a different language."

"I wish," Mark added. "Pity the aliens didn't take him with them."

"Remember the time when Renee Williams died on the wing. Di Barker had to deal with that all on her own and where were you, Jim Fenner? Clearing off to

the Social Club and getting pissed every chance that you could. And remember the time that I called round that time that Marilyn cleared off with your

children and you were crying on my shoulder? You were telling a different tale then." Karen added scornfully.

"Well, you'll be out on your ear, Karen." sneered Fenner "Bostock can see a mile away that you're not a team player. Enjoy your new job stacking shelves

in Tescos."

"You leave Karen alone." Mark burst out."Or I'll finish off what I started last time."

Mark had interposed himself between Karen and Fenner and was within a few inches of Fenner who physically backed away in annoyance.

It was on the tip of his tongue to make some wisecrack about Karen and Mark having cosy cosied up to each other but he remembered Karen's threat of disciplinery

action and he muttered something sourly under his breath before turning to slink out of the room.

"Aren't you going to take your sidekick with you, Fenner." Mark jeered. "You know, the one who laughs at all your jokes even before you've made them."

Mark's thought was, as he had sent Fenner packing, he might as well clear out the other bastard from out of the room. A very chastened Colin looked very

sheepishly and scuttled out of the room. Karen, in turn, grabbed her papers and made a swift exit from the room back to her office.

Mark was due to have a break from his shift and with a glow of victory well fought, he downed a pint from the Social Club in short order. Despite Karen's

initial prickly behaviour, it seemed like the old times doing battle with Fenner. As soon as he had really got to know the bastard after he and Karen split

up, every caustic word she uttered seemed to sum up the bastard perfectly. He was someone that had every bad quality going for him, a liar, a bully, treated

women like shit and, oh yes, he fancies himself as God's gift to women. If there was one hatred in his soul that he was totally unashamed it was a hatred

of bullies and that went back as far as the school playground. You didn't need female intuition to know their type, what made them tick, how they operated.

You couldn't say the name of a bastard like Fenner without spitting it out into the air.

All this time, he was chatting to Ken and his own thoughts were whirling around at the back of his head while he sustained the everyday conversations. These

seemed to sparkle now he was back with his mates at Larkhall and not the social outcast. This place had seen many a pint downed and plenty of good cheer

and, at moments like these, it seemed impossible that it was all going to change, even with Lynfords creeping around. This was first strike to the resistance

and the war was turned to the barman and there seemed to be time for a swift half.

"Still single and fancy free, Mark?" Ken asked."I would have thought you'd have got yourself hitched by now. It's different for me as I was bloody glad

to find someone who would take me on. Course, with two kids to support, it's all hard graft and the money flows out before you can even blink" And he nursed

his half pint he'd stretched out on this break. All very different for a Senior Officer with no ties.

"Oh there's time yet." Mark smiled to the others mysteriously.

It seemed that relationships between him and Karen were going to work out easier than he had feared. She had been pretty frosty till they'd started to talk

and the old sympathy was coming back. He'd been glad that he'd been around when Fenner mouthed off and it had needed someone to stand up for Karen. He

remembered when he'd first talked to her, her grin when he'd told her that he'd kneed Fenner in the bollocks. That brought back in a rush the old days

before things had gone all wrong between them……and that was all Fenner's fault for coming between them. The bastard thought that he could trash their relationship

if Karen wouldn't go back to him. He still remembered the nights they'd spent together and there was never a lover like her, especially that one magic

night after they'd gone out to the pub. However much he'd tried to banish all the memories from Karen from his mind, they'd come back with a rush, the

happy memories to the fore. It was what he remembered her best for and surely the good times would come back.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karen went back to her office in a fury. What she did not want was Mark as a knight in shining armour to defend her. It might be all very fine in children's

stories but not in real life. But she was conscious of the swirling pressures that had funneled in with her at the centre. And it dragged her mind back

to the horrors that she wanted to forget and didn't let her move on from them. Yes, Mark was a shining knight in armour, apart from the one time in her

life when she wanted him to believe her and the look in her eyes betrayed him and her even before he started to speak…….. She pressed her hands to her

head before starting to furiously work through her files. She dared not even begin to think.

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It was in the empty library later on that Mark, in the full flush of a romantic mood saw Karen. She gave a tight smile as acknowledgement while Mark greeted

her heartily.

"You don't need to worry any more, Karen." Mark spoke confidently and kindly."You've got me to back you up."

"It's not as easy as that with Larkhall up for privatisation." Karen said cautiously." I saw the way you reacted to Bostock. He scared the hell out of you.

That's why I don't want you to get too heavy handed with Fenner. For your sake." Karen finished with real concern and a suggestion of tenderness in her

eyes.

That brought Mark up short. He remembered that fear that the sight of him had instilled in him and the nightmare memories of his time at Bradgate.

"There's no one else around apart from me that will stand up to them. Fenner's ready to jump ship and leave us to drown. Colin Hedges, he's spineless and

will follow Fenner. All the others are keeping their heads down, pretending it won't happen. The POA is nothing like it was, and it wasn't much good in

Sylvia's time That's why we need each other, Karen." Mark said tenderly, trying to put some spirit into them and reassure her.

True,thought Karen. Mark was talking sense and was raising to the surface all her own fears that Lynfords will cherry pick who they want and leave everyone

else out in the cold. She did not doubt the power of her own personality and the authority of her position but a small part of her felt that she was standing

on quicksand that would drag her down no matter how hard she fought. Mark saw a small flicker of fear in her eyes behind the impassive strong exterior.

"Why can't it be like it was in the old days," Mark urged."It was good between us, until Fenner got in the way, wasn't it."

Karen didn't answer. She had welcomed the company of a sympathetic man who had gone through a turbulent relationship with Gina and had lost the baby that

she was expecting. After Fenner, Mark had seemed a step up in the world when they first started going out together, nothing heavy. That was what she had

always wanted.

And Mark very gently put his arms around Karen and went to clasp her to himself and to heal the emptiness in him and between themselves.

Karen froze. Everything in her seemed to turn to stone at the feel and the presence of him.. Suddenly, something inside made her push him away. She seemed

to push herself away with a speed of a rocketing pheasant. It was at the level of instinct that took over her beyond all conscious thought.

Mark felt as if a cold bucket of water had been thrown over him as a liquid slap in the face. He was frozen with shock.

"You hysterical woman. You've not changed, Karen. And I thought that there still were feelings between us even after everything" Mark snapped.

Karen's world had brutally shifted on its axis to the time she'd told Mark about that horrible night. And bloody Fenner was in the middle of all this mess

as before. She had to leave this room and go somewhere, anywhere.

Scene Fifteen

Outwardly to the casual passer by, Karen was her normal self, same suit, same hairstyle and expression which gave nothing away as she made a bee line to

her office . Inwardly, she was driven by an automatic instinct to reach for whatever salvation lay to hand. It could have been two or three very outsized

glasses of scotch, work or no work, or to throw some large object at the wall, never mind the noise or her reputation but instead, she hovered that one

second and her eye lit on the computer in the corner of her office. She had to let it all out, that much her instincts told her. Intelligence, reasoning

power, straight line logic did not enter the situation. The computer was someone she was sure she could talk to without it judging her. Everything she

had felt in the past which she had bottled up came straight out into the here and now. She wasn't remembering the past, she was reliving those feelings

in the present with all the intensity with which she had first experienced them. She clicked on the computer with slightly trembling fingers, watched the

screen take shape, selected a document name and her fingers ran rapidly across the keyboard. Her ability to touch type meant that the typing tapped directly

from her feelings to the screen without any physical intervention.

"I didn't want Mark to touch me at first. I didn't want anyone to touch me. The very thought of male hands on my female body was nauseating. Mark used to

be so hurt when I flinched away from him. I don't blame him really. He tried so hard to be there for me, but he never understood. He could never and would

never understand how I'm feeling because he's a man. All most men can really focus on is the bit of them they shove in to a woman at the point of climax.

All they can feel is the grinding thrust that achieves their goal. They're not really seeing the woman they're fucking, just the bit of her body which

they need to achieve their ultimate aim.

I tried to sleep with Mark, I really did. The problem was he could tell I was faking it. I hated doing that to him, but to lead him on then push him away

would have been even worse. I needed to see how it would feel after Jim. I needed to know how I would react to having a man inside me again. I felt very

detached from it. It was like I was watching myself being screwed by Mark. I wasn't part of it. To give Mark his due, he didn't rush me. It was me who

made the first move. I had psyched myself up to sleeping with Mark and it was something I had to do. He just held me afterwards. I think he knew I hadn't

enjoyed it but we didn't discuss it. I couldn't say anything. If I'd tried to talk about it to try and put it in perspective, I think I might have lost

it completely.

I tried not to think about it for a couple of weeks. I kept Mark at a distance. I probably kept everyone at a distance. He went to put his hand on my shoulder

the other day and I couldn't stop myself moving away. He doesn't know how to deal with me. I don't think I know how to deal with myself. Jim keeps telling

me that I'll never know it good with anyone else. He's just trying to make himself feel better. I marvel at his inability to comprehend the simplest of

concepts sometimes. He really doesn't realise that what he did to me A: constitutes a serious crime, or B: that he has hurt me beyond anything he could

ever imagine. Maybe I know how Shell Dockley felt. There were times when she didn't want it, I'm sure of that. I think she stabbed him because she'd had

enough and partly because she was scared of losing the friendship I gave her. But Helen didn't ask for any of this. She knew what Jim was like from the

start. She didn't have to sleep with him and get lost under his spell to know what he was like. why didn't I listen to her? She told me I was too close

and that I couldn't see it. Maybe I should find her, talk to her and tell her she was right. Is it my fault for not listening to her? Maybe that's one

question I'll never know the answer too.

It was when Jim made that crack about my relationship with Mark being middle class and boring that I changed. Suddenly I needed to prove to myself that

I could sleep with men again, that I could enjoy it again. No way was Jim bloody Fenner going to put me off anything. Especially not something I used to

enjoy so much. Jesus! He's got the pictures to prove how much I got out of it. As Mark is still somewhat in attendance, I thought I may as well try out

my plan on him. It worked. I think he got the shock of his life when I asked him to stay. He didn't understand what had suddenly changed in me. It didn't

take him long to consider it though. I can't say I did enjoy what we did but I didn't hate it as much as the first time. I think I abandoned myself to

giving Mark the best time he'd had in his life. Maybe I was making up for all the times I refused to let him touch me. He was completely floored by the

amount of energy I put in to it. It was almost like I needed to possess him. I needed to be the one in power. I think it was my way of saying that I was

no longer going to be a victim. I think I knew that this would be the last time for me and Mark so I wanted us to go out with a bang, as it were. And Richie,

Yvonne's son, he was a complete spur of the moment thing. The way he flirted with me in the visiting room made me realise that men still wanted me. That

was the most vigorous sex I've had in a long time. It was like I was exorcising a ghost, which in a way I was. I was getting rid of the Jim Fenner which

had haunted my days and interrupted my nights for far too long. I screwed the hell out of Richie and I suppose I did enjoy it, in a way. When I thought

about it afterwards, it was like I'd adopted a different personality for the night. Or maybe I returned to my old one, my pre-Jim Fenner self. Whatever

happened to me that night was good. Even if I act like a slag for a little while, it has to be better than what I've put Mark through recently. Maybe I'm

on the road to rediscovering myself…………."

Karen was not aware of anything around her at all and did not know that one of the POs had said, "Miss Betts, Yvonne Atkins to see you." Yvonne had walked

towards Karen's desk and was slightly surprised to see that Karen did not turn round and greet her with her normal friendly smile. Instead she was facing

at right angles to her desk clicking away at her computer at a furious pace.

"Miss Betts," Yvonne said, quietly and politely, feeling on ceremony a bit."I thought you wanted to see me."

Karen did not answer but rattled away furiously, hunched up over the computer. Something about her body language screamed emotional tension. The lock of

the hair at the side of her face was falling halfway across her eyes but she didn't even flick it away.

Yvonne let time pass briefly while she thought out what to do. She didn't want to be nosy but her eyes flicked to the computer screen and fragments of the

story leapt up off the screen at her. This was not some novel that she was in at the creation of the writer's story but this was for real, the flesh and

blood people that she sees everyday and her son Ritchie whom she had a 'behind the scenes' view of. Jesus, Yvonne thought, this is a woman that's emotionally

cut up to hell. Her instinct to go over to her and hug her battled with her instinct that Karen should get it out of her system her own way, undisturbed.

Suddenly a tickle ran up the inside of her throat and she coughed.

"Yvonne, what are you doing here?" Karen asked in a dazed, surprised tone of voice, wondering why she was here and not Yvonne and not the anger of, why

are you invading my personal space and my secrets.

"I've got an appointment, Karen, remember. I didn't want to disturb you," Yvonne said with real tender concern that melted in her voice.

That was the cue Karen needed to smile in a sheepish, embarrassed way, the woman and not the Wing Governor. She relaxed back into her chair, her head resting

against the backrest. All the tension had evaporated out of her body, somehow

"You're surprised to see me behind this cool, calm exterior, Yvonne" Karen replied with an exaggeratedly debonair manner about her which did not fool Yvonne

one bit in the very real defensiveness about her. Totally blind instinct took charge in making her feel incredibly guilty and incredibly foolish."…nor

what's happened to me these past few months."

Yvonne read through the sheet of paper word for word and one passage jumped out at her and gave her the presentiment of some appalling horror from what

she knew Fenner had done to Dockley. "He really doesn't realise that what he did to me A: constitutes a serious crime, or B: that he has hurt me beyond

anything he could ever imagine. Maybe I know how Shell Dockley felt."

"What happened with Fenner, if you don't mind me asking."

"At one point, Grayling had had his knife into Fenner for all the wrong reasons ……..….I know that you wouldn't think that is possible but it was for selfish

reasons. I was going out with Mark at that point. I went round to Fenner's bed sit one night as I was sorry for him and I thought it was safe going round

to see him. You remember that I lived with Fenner at one time …."and Karen grimaced at that point. "and I thought I knew him. Just shows how wrong you

can be." Karen's voice tailed off for a moment before picking up the thread. "Anyway, he kept pouring me drinks and we were talking. He kissed me and we

ended up in bed. I told him at that point I didn't want to go any further but he forced me. I kept telling him no but he ignored me and pretended to himself

and me that it was never rape, at the time afterwards and I'm sure the bastard believes it still. " As Karen spoke, Yvonne could feel as if it were happening

to her.

Karen's dry flat emotionless tones etched out the story painfully till at the end her anger broke through and she could call her emotions her own.

"What happened to you thanks to that bastard Fenner, Karen, is my worst fucking nightmare come true. I was Yvonne Rayner, living at home out for a dance

with my mates and I nearly got raped when I was seventeen. Want to hear?" Yvonne asked, not wanting to take away from Karen's experiences and highly conscious

not to break the delicate spider's web thick thread of communication between them. Karen nodded, her eyes fixed on Yvonne.

"I was young and stupid then and went to a club with my mate Bev. We'd both had had a skinful, she was arguing with her boyfriend and, next thing I knew,

they'd shot off in a taxi to his place. There was I, stood outside in the pitch black and wondering what I was supposed to do as she was supposed to be

stopping at my parent's house as they'd gone out. It was pissing it down and I was with this fella I'd picked up."

Yvonne paused and Karen's eyes told her that she was listening to every syllable and seeing the scene through her eyes.

"We hopped into a taxi and I remember I was yabbering away to him, nineteen to the dozen. He seemed quiet, not much to say for himself and seemed harmless.

I took him back to my parents after stopping at the offy for another bottle. When we got back, we were drinking away and laughing. He seemed to have come

out of himself. Yeah, right. Till the drink got to his dick and he tried it on with me. I was bleeding shitting myself. He'd ripped off my blouse and,"

And at this point, Yvonne's tough, casual persona crumbled. "There I was, lying on the couch, having my clothes torn off by some bloke who was as quiet

as you like before he got me home. But I managed to kick him out, so I was lucky."

"I felt so stupid," Said Karen in a half strangled voice.

"Yeah, me too," Replied Yvonne. "Just because you knew him doesn't mean you should have known any better. If anything, it's the other way round."

"Helen tried to tell me so many times what Fenner was like," Went on Karen, "And I didn't listen to her till it was too late."

"You mean he did this to Helen?" Asked Yvonne, beginning to see the full extent of Karen's anguish.

"Not quite, she left a report about it on my desk the day she left, and even then I didn't take her seriously. He told me it was bollocks and I fell for

it."

"Karen, you can't blame yourself for what happened to Helen. We've all done things we know were stupid at the time. I certainly should have known better,

but you do these daft things when you are young, you can do daft things at any age. It doesn't mean you are a bad person, you fall for the wrong man and

you can't hear that voice in your ear that tells you to back away, and you can't hear those around you telling you to leave."

"After that, I became the tough bitch Yvonne Atkins, hard as nails, with the gift of the gab and vowed to myself never to let myself be under any man's

thumb, not again. I was the one who was going to call the shots in the future."

"Sometimes I don't feel strong enough to keep it together," Said Karen, getting up and moving towards a cupboard from which she drew out a bottle of scotch

and two glasses. She gestured with the bottle in Yvonne's direction and received a nod and a smile.

"I know," Said Yvonne, taking the glass from her. "You can see it in your eyes sometimes, it's like everything's begging to be let out." Karen stared at

her.

"I didn't know you looked at me that closely," She said, half laughing to cover up how touched she was that someone had noticed.

"So is that how you deal with it, by writing?" Asked Yvonne, eager to change the subject from just how much she'd tracked Karen's emotions.

"Sometimes," Said Karen, lighting them both a cigarette. "It doesn't always work, and I'm quite often too uptight to do it."

"I can't say it'll get easier," Said Yvonne, "Because I don't know the answer to that."

"I think that's what Ritchie was supposed to be about," Said Karen, taking a long drag. Then, at Yvonne's questioning gaze, she elaborated. "Ritchie knew

nothing about me. It was the easiest thing in the world to fake it with him." Yvonne felt a sharp stab of pain at Karen's words. Even Yvonne had known

what it was like to have to fake it from time to time. It was a lesson all women had found it necessary to learn since the dawn of time. But to have to

sleep with a total stranger so that they wouldn't know, that was just terrible.

"Sweetheart," Yvonne said gently. "None of this makes you a bad person." Brief tears rose to Karen's eyes at the term of endearment, no-one had called her

sweetheart in longer than she cared to remember.

"That's open for discussion," She replied drily, trying to disguise her emotions. "But it does make me pretty useless where men are concerned."

"Why all this now?" Asked Yvonne, knowing there must be a reason for this sudden need to offload.

"Mark was trying the old protective routine. I know it sounds stupid, but it really got to me. When he came back, we agreed that things had to stay absolutely

professional. Then first, I catch him fighting with Fenner, and now he's trying to act as if guarding my career, never mind my body, is what he's here

for." Karen's voice had risen in the old familiar way Yvonne knew best.

"It wasn't such a good idea him coming back was it?"

"No," Said Karen, getting up to refill their glasses. "Having him around, all it does is to remind me how bloody weak I'm capable of being." Karen moved

to sit in a chair near to Yvonne, rather than putting the barrier of her desk in between them once again. "Why do you always make me unwind?" Karen suddenly

said. Yvonne laughed.

"Probably because we're both as mental as each other." Then she turned serious. "Listen, Mark being back here might dig up a lot of things, though quite

how you can work in the same place as Fenner day in day out without chopping his dick off is beyond me. Just remember that your computer isn't the only

one who can listen, so to speak." Yvonne put her glass down and stood up. "I'd better go," She said, giving Karen's shoulder a little squeeze as she moved

towards the door. It was noted by both of them that Yvonne's touch hadn't made Karen flinch, in the same way it had with Mark. "I would say stay safe,"

Said Yvonne, "But I think stay sane is more appropriate." As Yvonne left, Karen wondered just who this being was, this woman who seemed to know what buttons

to press to make her begin to purge herself of some of the anger, some of the guilt, and possibly even the pain.

Scene Sixteen

"Oh shit, what have I done?" Mark exclaimed to himself in the dead of night when the subconscious thoughts on his mind had swirled around in his dreams

and he woke up with a start, wide awake at one o clock in the morning.

He had meant to be protective of Karen when he joined with her to attack Fenner. The bastard was being his usual conniving self and she needed backup, no

matter how tough she thinks herself. He meant well enough as a romantic gesture and Karen's reaction shocked him. Her reaction was the total and bewilderingly

opposite to what he had expected, that she would melt in his arms and that it would heal the wounds of their relationship which were still red raw. It

was only just recently that he knew that to be the case. That was certainly rammed home, the way she felt like a stone statue, repelling the physical display

of intimacy and the way that she turned on her heel and ran.

He turned over in bed and shifted the pillows but he only seemed to get more and more wrapped in his bedclothes. In the dark, the numbers on his bedside

alarm clock told him the bad news.

He had to get his head down and get some sleep or he would be a zombie the next day, hardly the condition if he was going to be called on by Prison Officers

and prisoners alike. He wanted sleep desperately but the more he wanted something like that, the more it eluded him. Story of his life. He groaned to himself.

He looked desperately for some element of certainty that he could grasp hold of with his feelings swirling round in his head but peace wasn't coming to

him. His breath came in and out in short bursts.

OK, he was bloody right that Karen was up against it and needed all the help that she could get. At times like these, the burst of confidence fuelled by

one too many drinks at the social club had deflated and the memory of Eric Bostock's face added to his fears. How crazy that with what there was in common

with Karen was blowing back in his face. He had to make his peace and try to kill off these feelings for Karen that were getting him nowhere. Easier said

than done, he thought ruefully.

In a moment of decision, he turned on his light, blinked when the glare from the light hit his eyes and went to make a warm drink for himself. His bare

feet trod the unsympathetic cold floor and took him to his fridge where he guessed the amount to slosh into a saucepan and shivered in the unsympathetic

night air as he waited for it to boil. It was funny that, once he was out of bed and downstairs, his eyes grew sleepy and he stumbled his way upstairs

holding his hope to sleep to deliver him from the loneliness of the night.

He looked all around him in the dim light of the bedside tablelamp. Only himself in a bed made for two which made him feel empty inside. He knew that Karen

would make for completeness on the few rare nights that they slept together and after they had made love and lay in each others arms in exhaustion and

that sense of completeness, he had gone off to sleep in a hazy feeling of wellbeing, not that sense of loneliness and, yes he had to admit it, sexual frustration.

He could not own up to this one out on a drink with the lads.

"What, Mark. You're joking. Bet you have to fight all the women off." A chorus of voices leered at him if he were to own up. Deny it, and he would be lying

to himself and living a lie while he acted all mock coy, tell the truth and he would lose face. And, if the rare event happened that one of the lads was

all sympathy, what good would it do? He shuffled the pillows around in sheer frustration for the sleep that didn't come..

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That night, Karen didn't even dare to think of the sort of mental horrors that had been dug up out of the vault where for sanity's sake, they had been best

hidden out of self preservation, certainly not Fenner, not Mark and not Richie. Some pride in her didn't want sympathy for herself as it embarrassed her

and made her feel weak, especially in times like this when she needed all the strength she could get. Was mentally falling apart going to be what she really

needed to do right now, she asked of herself. Yet some instinct channeled her mind to the one place where she could clasp that sympathy to herself, by

feeling the feelings of someone else who had been through the same experiences. In her mind, Yvonne's face appeared to as sight and her voice in her ears

as memory and her matter of fact sympathy and real understanding was as if she were on her last legs in the middle of the Sahara desert and out of nowhere

an oasis of water and emotional rescue was magically to hand. All she knew was that it was right. In some mysterious game of life, Yvonne certainly made

the right move at the right time even if she might not be aware of it herself.

The soundless way that Yvonne's story of her own past came back into her mind and a real human sympathy flowed its way to the other woman as she exposed

her own mental scars that had not healed. Somehow, reflecting on Yvonne's troubled past life might be a way to confront her own problems. So this explains

Yvonne's own 'tough bitch' persona where those narrowed mascaraed eyes could pin down any foolish and disrespectful man or woman, whoever she was,at thirty

paces. Yet, coming into her office on a routine interview, Yvonne surprised the hell out of her by letting down her guard straightaway, not to a fellow

inmate, but to Karen Betts, Wing Governor, near the top of the shitheap, of all people. But, so her mind reasoned, it was not so surprising perhaps if,

rank aside, they were sisters under the skin, one who could call her 'sweetheart.'

Karen shook her head in wonder at such fanciful notions. She'd got hardly any woman friends, she wasn't that confiding type, not that many close friends

come to think of that, only the men in her life who had come and gone and did that really count?

So who was there around at night when she wanted answers from life around her. Up till then, she had herself, because, unless she could depend on herself,

nobody else could or would do it for her. But was that enough, she asked herself as she stretched her legs out in the big double bed which felt too big

and lonely for her.

Still, there was no denying, as soon as Yvonne came into her sight, her spirits automatically lifted and she wanted to know her better. Somehow, she sensed

that that was what she needed. That feeling of semi resolution soothed her down a little and let her eyelids drop down over her restless sight and soothe

her gradually off to sleep.


	2. Part Two

DISCLAIMER: All the characters used within this story are the property of Shed Productions. I am using them solely to explore my creative ability.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.

Return to Sender

By

Richard

Scene Seventeen

Today, thought Yvonne, must be one of the most bleeding upside down days I've ever had but for once the spirit in her felt that there is hope for the future.

She'd now got an assignment from Karen to nobble those bleeding aliens from Lynfords from coming onto her patch, their patch, and fast. She also had the

first feelings of tenderness and warmth that was for her as much as she gave out that was making her feel whole and new. Catch Yvonne Atkins going soft,

she gently and smilingly chided herself.

It was a few days after she had had a heart to heart talk with Karen but somehow, her life was involved with other prisoners' problems and she had not seen

much of Karen except the odd smile in passing while she went on her official duties. When she had time for herself, she had been alone in her cell and

had been in one of those 'down' moods that she got for no good reason that she could explain. That was the story of her life. Part of the time, she wanted

so much for time to deal with her own problems and when she had that time, she almost wished that she had some sort of distraction away from herself. Opening

up to Karen about that night that she had done her best to obliterate from her mind seemed to unearth a lot of ugly memories that part of her wanted to

see buried. There seemed to be no way out of this trap.

If she looked back to before she came to Larkhall, she was always the happy go lucky kind of women who had too much going in her own life for things to

get her down. She had her job in charge of the bookie's which took up enough of her energies, she had Lauren around at home and Charlie whom she thought

she loved. Even now, she feels like a fish out of water, that's the trouble no matter what she tries to fill her life up with. There's too much time alone

to brood, even for Yvonne Atkins. She would never tell one of the girls to 'snap out of it' if she same across one of the Julies looking like she felt.

That would be the sort of thing Charlie might say but not her as she knows that it doesn't work and, in fact makes things worse.

A train of thought took her to remembering her long conversation with Karen that day and a feeling of tenderness and understanding went out to the woman

who was somewhere around on G Wing even though she couldn't see her through these prison walls. It was the first time that she had seen behind the official

uniform and the manner which went with it. She had always known that Karen Betts was for real and that there wasn't just a rank addressing her. There was

a lot more in common between the two of them than she ever thought and it seemed natural to comfort her, call her 'sweetheart' which she'd never ever called

Charlie. He didn't want some woman going soft on him and she had partly adopted the hard exterior from him when she became an Atkins. Something in her

told herself that there were other ways of living and being and the touch of Karen's shoulder seemed the natural way of being with her.

It also told her what an out and out bastard Fenner was, not with the rest of the girls, not with Dockley and Rachel Hicks but Karen as well. He'd better

not ever try anything of that while she's around or he's going to have to go to hospital for a dick replacement operation. She laughed to herself a bit,

going all protective for Karen.

At that moment, her cell door burst open and the woman whom she was most in her thoughts jumped into existence before her eyes. Karen's face was flushed

and she sounded out of breath.

"Yvonne, I want you to help me out. it's important."

"Sure, Karen." Yvonne could remember saying automatically. Normally, her cast iron rule was to ask to see the other person's cards first and to not make

blind promises. She broke this lifetime habit without even thinking about it.

"There's going to be an official presentation of the dream machine wheelchair for Buki's son Lennox………"

"You what," Yvonne cut in, incredulously.

"It's not that in itself that I'm bothered about, Yvonne." Karen explained with a touch of impatience."There is bound to be some sort of handover ceremony.

What gets to me is that this circus is designed as a PR job to sell Lynford Securities to the Prison Service so that they can bloody walk in and take over

like you've seen them starting to do. You can take it from me that they have done sod all to help in this matter, it's been the hard work of the women

on G Wing that have made this wheelchair." Karen explained passionately. Yvonne noted with extreme interest the way Karen referred to them as 'women',

not 'prisoners' or 'cons' and that endeared her to Yvonne.

"Anyway, the presentation has been scheduled. It's taking place here in Larkhall. In the gardens. Christopher Biggins, the patron of Kids on Wheels UK will

be attending to accept the chair on Lennox's behalf."

"First anyone's known about this." Yvonne asked with a slight edge to her voice.

"You're getting a taste of the new regime of what is to come if we let it. Neither have the Prison Officers known anything of what I'm telling you now.

Lynfords, aided and abetted by Grayling plan to treat everyone like mushrooms." Karen added acidly.

"What do you mean?" Yvonne asked, trying to get her head round this puzzle.

"Feed everyone a load of shit and keep them in the dark." Karen replied shortly.

Yvonne smiled broadly as this was a gag she had never heard of before and one coming from Karen's lips showed her as having the same sense of humour.

"So why are you talking now?" Yvonne enquired fully expecting a straight answer.

"Because, like a good Wing Governor, I've been fighting this tooth and nail strictly according to the rules from the inside, by going through proper channels.

Only I'm clearly getting marginalised now and will probably be out of a job. I'm being told what is going on with no chance to give my opinions, for or

against anything in this dump. So I've decided that if playing according to the rules doesn't work, then it's about time in my life that I learned to break

a few rules, and to do it without any guilt, any hang ups but to do it with pleasure." Karen finished with a broad grin.

That's the person I've been looking all my life for, Yvonne thought triumphantly. Someone who thinks the same way, feels the same way and who I was made

to be with.

"And where do you want me to come in on this?" Yvonne asked with a poker face.

"It's going to be quite an event. I know Bostock is hoping to attract a lot of publicity for his company. It would be a great shame if anything were to

go wrong. Only be careful, Yvonne as I'm still responsible for the Prison Officers and there are limits to what I can do. You know that, Yvonne." Karen

finished, looking deep into Yvonne's eyes who took in her depths and expressiveness

"You talk to the rest of the women and tell me what you've come up with." Karen asked Yvonne softly.

"And what other rules do you think we ought to break, Karen." Yvonne asked with a smile while the speed rush of Karen's talking was mysteriously slowed

by the look in Yvonne's eyes which held Karen there.

"I've got to be going now but for now…"Karen stopped her face only inches away from Yvonne.

Then the bleeding unimaginable happened to her that Karen softly and gently pressed her full lips against Yvonne's . After the first split second shock

of surprise, Yvonne gave herself to the taste and feel of the woman next to her with no sense of surprise and the video in her head of her accustomed responses

was instantly shut off. For a little while, Karen's relentless need to hurry was suspended in time .This was the first real taste of physical softness

and gentleness next to her. Yvonne knew where the hole in her life was that she was struggling to name in her more depressed moods and this moment answered

Karen's soul searching which up till now she had only been able to tell her computer about..

Scene Eighteen

It was all bright and sunny on the day that was designed to launch Lynfords Securities as the caring, sharing face of the modernised prison service. The

tired old, underfunded public sector obviously needed a fresh injection of private enterprise funding and a more entrepreneurial spirit, so the Home Office

minister had decided on a sample selection of the underperforming prisons. Larkhall had attracted his attention with the run of bad publicity that had

cropped up over the years so he had been eager to let the local Area management have the go ahead on that one.

The sun smiled down on Yvonne as she filed into the exercise yard. She could do with something to lift her spirits as she was gambling everything on the

future of all of them, including Karen Betts and the more principled Prison Officers. A little of Yvonne's past came back to her thoughts when she truly

believed in the "us versus then","screws versus the cons." She shook her head thinking how times have changed that all the rigid barriers had melted away

bringing together Karen and her as allies, then friends and then that unexpected kiss. She shook away her daydreams and fantasies and focussed her mind

on the here and now. Behind her, Denny slouched into place prepared to be bored out of her brains. The psychotic Al McKenzie made an unlikely companion,

stood side by side by the very proper Babs. The two Julius smiled ready to pose for any photographers who came their rest of the more compliant

prisoners shuffled their way indecisively into place, prepared to passively accept as consumers what was put forward in front of them. The more determined

spirits of G wing, well primed by Yvonne what to do were waiting for the nod to spring into action.

The drab grey colourless exercise yard was more festive and colourful in all its centuries of grim service thanks to the display stand for Kids on Wheels

and the festive balloons. The logo "Every single chair shows how much we care" proclaimed the heartfelt intentions of the charity. Christopher Biggins

had penned these lines himself in a sincere effort to move people to give to charity in the same way as his performances on many a theatrical stage had

moved a paying audience. The trouble was these frightful charlatans he was landed with who were like some sleasy second hand car salesmen. He was beginning

to wonder what he was letting himself in for not to say the charity.

Grayling had turned out early, safely monopolising the company of Fenner, Eric Bostock and Christopher Biggins but at a noticable standoffish distance away

from Karen. Fenner stood around, smugly counting down the days to when the Wing governor job was his and Betts was out of Larkhall for good. The glittering

prize was almost within his grasp. It was only a matter of time. Eric Bostock allowed himself a faint smile as everything had gone better than he had expected

since he first came here. The names of those who would be surplus to requirements had been written down in his little black book and those left would provide

the core structure which he could build on. There were enough lads in other prisons who would jump to it and move down as their lord and master demanded.

Grayling's cold opportunist eyes merely saw it as good PR material so that when Lynfords finally took over, his position was safe and secure, the Larkhall

to be, his face on the front page and his career well and truly launched.

At a nod from Grayling, Christopher Biggins took the microphone for his lengthy address to the growing throng including the attentive and eager press lenses

and notebooks at the ready held by the hardened pressmen.

Karen's conscious mind separated herself away from that minimum necessary to follow what Christopher Biggins was saying and was all eyes on Yvonne and the

group around her. She had agreed to Yvonne's plan as simple and effective- indeed it was far better than anything she had come up with on her own. She

did not doubt Yvonne's very commanding and resourceful personality but she remembered hearing from Helen Stewart about the riot that had taken place when

the combination of all the natural leaders in G wing, including Nikki Wade, had not stopped what was planned as a peaceful non violent protest from going

disastrously wrong. She had given the instructions for G wing officers with a straight face and feelings of misgiving.

"We'll show Lynfords how an event like this is properly run," Karen had finished with a straight face, avoiding Mark's eye as he echoed her response which

was flung in the face of a studiously bored Fenner.

Get a grip of yourself Karen, she told herself. If things run their course, Sylvia, Di Barker, Ken and above all herself will be out of a job. Only that

bastard Fenner with that alien android Eric Bostock will be there, training up a load of men transferred in from Lynford's empire and they will be running

the show, oh yes with their precious CCTV cameras. It will be a nasty, cheap brutal operation and the women on the wing will suffer including all those

to come. It's not the rightness of the plan you're worried but whether this protest will work.

The slick PR operation ran its course and Karen exchanged a contemptuous glance with Yvonne when Grayling took centre stage between Phyl and Bev for the

photo shoot and announces their transfer to an open prisoner . He looks as if he was born to be the other side of a photolens and his spontaneous pose

was perfectly planned. The humble assistants in the making of the dream machine were not exactly pleased to be bit part actors, not even paid before being

dismissed from the set but, once Yvonne gave the signal, they were going to gatecrash the Lynfords Twentieth Century Fox film conception with their own

performance.

Yvonne, loitering near the back of the crowd of G wing prisoners, took up the best position to see everything and be ready for action. In one confused flash

of movement, the dream machine was pushed full pelt in the direction of the greenhouse with a wailing sound from Christopher Biggins trailing behind him.

"All right, Mark you get the remaining prisoners banged up." Karen performed her Wing Governor role to perfection, dealing with an emergency routine to

perfection to apparently restrict the numbers who could get pulled into the protest whereas in reality she wanted to remove as many of the prisoners from

the scene that might be caught up in any mayhem.

"All right, that's enough. The party's over." Grayling called out furiously. He wanted the press to be swiftly removed so that there would be no prisoners

'playing to the gallery.' "I must insist that you leave the premises."

"Neil, is this wise?" Karen called out, white with anger. "You're going to land yourself on the front page of the Sun for no good reason, and not on Page

3 ."

"Don't worry, Neil there's Karen Betts Voice of the People to help us out." Bostock's cold evil voice enraged Karen.

Fenner had leapt to the breach cajoling and persuading a bunch of the press to move out through the two set of gates to the car park at the front. Needless

to say, Colin Hedges and others of Fenner's other hangers on helped him out.

"All right, Neil, be it on your head. Not everything gets as controlled as you like it. Hope Area find tomorrow's newspapers interesting reading." Karen

retorted with as much assumed nonchalence as she could muster. She felt like a spare part the wrong side of the barricades.

Shit, thought Yvonne, that's part of the plan up the spout as she saw the press and the other prisoners dispersed leaving the Prison Officers grouped outside.

There was only one card to play and that was a very scared looking Christopher Biggins.

"You do what you're going to do and get me out of here as soon as you can." He spoke in a cultured voice that outposhed Charlotte Middleton.

He thinks that a load of violent women prisoners are going to slit his throat as soon as look at him, poor guy, Yvonne thought compassionately. We have

to win him over..

"Listen, ladies. A bit of respect, yeah and give him a bit of space." Her commanding personality immediately resulted in the tight grip on him being loosened.

"I'm Yvonne Atkins," she said extending her hand forward which Christopher Biggins found himself shaking.

"This presentation is for Buki Lester's son Lennox and we've not nothing against you doing the presenting bit for Kids on Wheels. If this was all the presentation

was about, none of us would lay a finger on you but those bastards at the top that were hovering round you are using you and your charity to privatise

this prison so half the screws who are decent get shipped out and they bring in some animals to replace them. Shit conditions for us and no hope for the

future." Yvonne's voice was hoarse and throaty with all the conviction in her voice that she could muster."

The insightful actor within Christopher Biggins responded immediately to the obvious sincerity of this warm hearted woman whom he couldn't help believing.

There was something about her that could be dangerous but he didn't feel threatened by her.

"We can't exactly lobby the local council or have a one to one with our MP. So you're the best way of us getting out."Yvonne reasoned.

"Between you and me, Yvonne, I wouldn't trust any of them that were showing me round this place. What are you going to do next, Yvonne?" Christopher Biggins

asked her, taking in the friendly faces of the 2 Julies, the ultra respectable Babs and even Denny was basically just a nice kid underneath the tattoos

and combat clothes.

"This is a new one on me, Chris." Yvonne smiled, "The hostage discussing with the desperate criminals how to turn over the screws. Except that we've got

to work in with the best of them for what we all want.. They ain't all like Grayling and Fenner and Bostock."

"And who are they, if you don't mind me asking."

"Karen Betts, Wing Governor, for one. She's the best."

"They're going to come to us, Yvonne. And you're going to have to tell them what you want out of them before you set me free."

"Now we've got rid of the press, we can get those troublemakers banged up." Eric Bostock triumphantly exclaimed.

"Hold on a minute, Neil, this man doesn't run the prison….."

"Not yet, Karen." Bostock butted in.

"As of this moment, the Home Office own and run this prison, Neil. And this man," Karen gestured to Bostock, not wanting to dignify him by as much as a

name." Is technically and legally a civilian visitor."

"That's right, Karen. So I'm in charge." Grayling glared, his lips pursed and drawn in."And I make the decisions round here."

"And don't forget that we have another civilian visitor, Christopher Biggins, for whose safety we are responsible and there will be hell to pay if he gets

hurt……not to mention a bad press." Karen jumped in with an angry tone in her voice."Perhaps you had better talk to them and at least find out what their

plans are and what they want of us."

"So that we can roll over and let that mob have what they want." Fenner snapped.

"I mean, in a similar way to when Helen Stewart and I got you out of the cell when Shell Dockley stabbed you with a broken bottle and we saved your life

though goodness knows I wonder why we ever bothered."

Karen fired back with a lethal dose of pure venom and hatred that made Fenner flinch..

"I agree with you, Karen." Grayling glared. He was clearly not used handling this sort of situation but the force of argument pushed him into it. That alone

was something that made him petulent and peevish that his personal space was being crowded. He was right out in the open and was highly conscious of this.

All eyes were upon him and his reputation was at stake

Scene Nineteen

"All right, Atkins, we want to hear from you just what this is all about. You have precisely fourteen seconds to talk," Came Grayling's voice loud and clear

as he stood at the head of the massed gathering outside.

"As much as that, Ju?" Julie Saunders said with contempt. It was typical of the fussy pedantic 'time is money' approach that he had to spell out the time.

Any other human being would have gone for a nice round fifteen or thirty seconds, she thought, as Yvonne opened the window.

"We might be locked up Grayling, but we're not idiots. Privatising Larkhall will make this place a whole lot worse. And we don't want it. And we don't want

that pillock here taking over as our Governor," Yelled Yvonne defiantly. "I tell you what we want and it's dead simple. Nobody moves out of here till Lynford

Securities drop their bid," Yvonne finished emphatically.

"You'll regret your irresponsible behaviour, every last one of you," yelled Grayling. "We do not give way to blackmail."

Nor do you 'give way' to anything that isn't in your self interest, said both the expression on Karen's face and her innermost thoughts. Of course, if he

faces a reasonable demand that doesn't suit his narrow self interest, a self centred man like that doesn't want to know, she reflected bitterly, and then

send in the Boot Boys, that is being really original.

"You may end up sitting pretty in some posh head office but I don't reckon much for the chances of the rest of your screws."

Yvonne's shrewd counter stroke made Grayling's gaze waver, Karen grin to herself and her sideways glance at the massed ranks of the prison officers had

its effect on them, unhappily not enough. Steeped as they were in the mental straitjacket of the Prison Service, they were only made to feel uncomfortable

and angry. There were too many moral cowards amongst them who had given Fenner his power long ago who were angered by the defiant woman dressed in black

leather armed with the boldness and courage that they lacked.

Karen's own frustrated impotence was not really caused by the same underlying pull of institutional ties but in a totally different direction. If only she

had her way, she would have scattered this pack of vultures to the four winds, but she was stuck in her role as a Wing Governor with all her responsibilities

but not with the ultimate power Grayling enjoyed but was misusing for his own ends. Her heart and sympathies were, more than ever, on the other side.

"Why don't you let Karen Betts have a go and keep the mob quiet?" Bostock cynically muttered out of the corner of his inexpressive mouth.

"I have no negotiating position. I'm not about to utter a load of meaningless platitudes that mean nothing and offer nothing even though you've made a career

out of it," Came Karen's curt response as she stared at Bostock while her words were half directed at Grayling.

"Can you at least try and keep the peace and ensure order?" Grayling sighed wearily, one of his headaches coming on with full force.

As Karen squared up to talk to the prisoners, Grayling said a few words in Fenner's ear who promptly sidled off discreetly along and led a number of prison

officers at the back of the crowd into the prison complex.

"Yvonne, you know that I haven't the authority to negotiate with you about the Lynfords takeover," Karen spoke out with as strong a spirit as she could

summon up and discreetly indicating her feelings on the subject. "All I'm asking of you in the meantime is that everything's in order where you are and

that Christopher Biggins is unharmed."

"You have the word of an Atkins on this. Haven't you, girls."

"I'm grateful for this. Nice place you've chosen for a sit in. Very botanical," Karen joked.

"Room service isn't all it could be, Karen."

While the banter was lobbed back and forth between the two of them, unknown to both of them, Fenner silently led the way along a little used corridor. With

his long experience of every nook and cranny of Larkhall, he came to a solid door, which led into the back of the greenhouse area.

"They should be nearly there, Neil, unless they've messed it up," Bostock muttered to Grayling.

"Got you, Atkins," Fenner yelled triumphantly, as the bolts slid back and the long shut door opened with a crunching sound of wood grating sideways against

concrete. Immediately, they swarmed into the confined space.

"What are you playing at, Karen?" Yvonne yelled, her eyes harrowed with hard suspicion.

"Not my doing, Yvonne. I play straight," Karen openly broke ranks at last. There was a brief flash of recognition before she turned to face the enemy.

In the first few minutes, it was clear that the prisoner's will to resist was stronger than Fenner had first thought when Al, Denny and the 2 Julies joined

and also he had sprung the trap too soon. They pitched into the prison officers with all the fury of people defending their hard won freedom, of their

place they could call their own because of power being temporarily in their hands for a part of Larkhall they would have hardly looked twice at, only a

greenhouse after all.

Fenner's contorted triumphant expression lasted only as long as Yvonne dodged his first blow and she grabbed hold at the symbol of all she had hated and

despised in all her passionate life in a life and death tussle. In an unguarded moment of his, Yvonne kneed him hard to hit him in the groin and he doubled

up groaning on the floor. In the meantime, the other prison officers ran back into the corridor.

"Get that bloody door shut," Yelled Yvonne.

Immediately, Denny and Al pushed the door shut and leaned against it with all their weight as an improvised obstacle.

"I'm going in here on my own, Neil. Might do a better job with diplomacy, only don't play any more games, not with me, not with Christopher Biggins and

not the prisoners. People don't like being conned, you know."

After Karen threw her words of accusation in Grayling's face, she strode purposefully to the outside door to the greenhouse just as Babs slid the bolts

to let her in.

"Not before bleeding time, Karen," Came Yvonne's welcome in her characteristic tough/tender fashion.

"Fancy talking to the press, Yvonne?" Karen smiled.

"Yeah, and a photo op with OK magazine and a room at the Hilton with room service," Came the caustic reply. Underneath she wondered how the down to earth

Karen that she knew was being hopelessly unrealistic.

"Yvonne, here's my mobile and I've got the phone number of the London Evening standard that I put on for some reason I don't remember. You tell it how it

is. Go ahead, Yvonne. I'm giving you a direct order as your Wing Governor or is an Atkins doing scared for the first time in her life?" Karen's playful

humour was accompanied by occasional groans from Fenner as he lay on the floor and brought a confident grin to Yvonne's face. If she could handle life

in Larkhall, then this should be a pushover.

"You tell them, Yvonne," Julie Saunders flush faced from the recent scrap, egged her on.

"Perhaps you ought to go nearer to the window for an outside broadcast," Karen helpfully advised while Babs still more helpfully opened the greenhouse window.

"Yvonne Atkins here. Am I talking to the newsdesk of the London evening Standard?" her stentorian voice carried through to the courtyard to the crowd outside.

"How the devil did Atkins get hold of a mobile?" Bostock's monotone escaped past his expressionless lips as they rushed over close to the greenhouse windows.

"Do something to sort this mess out, Neil. Show some muscle."

"Oh you'd be surprised at what goes on here, Mr Bostock," Came Karen's maddeningly bland reply.

"Karen Betts, get that mobile off Atkins," Yelled Grayling with quite unnecessary volume, visibly sweating that the PR machine was being mercilessly ranged

against him, This was a situation that Area would be bound to hear of something that he couldn't lie about or cover up.

"Sorry Neil, but I can't see what prison rule Yvonne Atkins is breaking. I'd be exceeding my authority especially that Larkhall Prison is now on the air."

"Yeah, I'm talking from the inside of the greenhouse at Larkhall Prison. That's L A R K H A L L., make sure you spell it right," Proclaimed Yvonne grinning

broadly at Grayling and Bostock dying of pure embarrassment, "You're asking what the prisoners demands are? Well, it's quite simple. Nothing really for

us like extra spends, that's sort of wages, or extra visits from the women's nearest and dearest. We just want a firm called Lynfords Security off our

patch. Once we get this assurance which the Governing Governor and Bostock, the head of Larkhall who are just the other side of the greenhouse windows,

then we're only too happy to release Christopher Biggins who's been well treated ……"

"………I have been. The ladies have been just fine……." Christopher Biggins stage voice was projected with ease into the mobile.

"………and we'd be happy to go back to our cells," Yvonne concluded in her most convincingly innocent manner."

Yvonne paused while she listened to the next question and every ear was listening closely. Karen sat back smiling, more relaxed than she had ever been since

she had come through the door, away from backup and apparent safety.

"There should be no reprisals, especially as our protest will save the screws, I mean prison officers, half of whom will be given the push by those load

of privatising sharks. You know, CCTV cameras all over the place, they're up there already so you can't go to the loo without one of their lot watching

us. Stands to reason that they won't need half of them and that's the way they'll scam the taxpayer," Yvonne finished to Karen's strong nod of approval.

Yvonne had used her eyes and ears well and had done everyone proud, including her.

"This is a disaster," moaned Eric Bostock as he could see the banner headlines and the profits graph marked by a jagged downward turn with him nailed at

the shareholder's annual general meeting as the scapegoat. "You can stick your prison. I'm pulling out."

"Can I quote you on that, Mr Bostock? I have quoted you right that 'Lynfords are dropping their bid.'" Yvonne's sharp ears hadn't missed a word.

"You can hear perfectly well. And now, are you going to end this lawless behaviour?" the peevish side of Grayling came to the fore.

"You only had to say earlier on, Mr Grayling," Yvonne replied in her most irritatingly reasonable manner. "All the girls are looking forward to being locked

up tonight by the screws we have, well some of them," she confessed as the vision of Bodybag as a Florence Nightingale figure stretched anyone's imagination

to breaking point.

Karen's wide smile and easy relaxed manner was obvious for all to see as after the very bumpy start, events had unrolled their way with immaculate smoothness,

thanks to the woman whose nerve and control she came to admire and rely on.

"Thanks for your mobile," Yvonne muttered as she signed off. On the other end, the grateful newsdesk had the scoop they wanted as the rest of the story

was delivered miraculously into their hands by the very fluent woman with the gift of the gab whose account wrote itself. The first half of it was written

and ready to roll but it needed the most vital parts of it to finish it off.

"Keep it, Yvonne. I'll talk to you after lockup. I've got some work to do late tonight. I'd better help Fenner back, not that he deserves my help or anyone

else's," Karen's sarcastic tones made it clear that her assistance was bare duty and anything but pleasure.

Yvonne smiled in satisfaction and she went on ahead and made her leisurely way out of the greenhouse where they had been an eternity. They made their way

past the group of prison officers whose faces were expressionless, not communicating their feelings, as enchained as any prisoner that way.

The festive balloons and displays were there but to the prisoners they were celebrating their achievement. A golden feeling of achievement coursed through

the veins of all of them fading deliciously to a feeling of calm serenity. Against all the odds, they'd pulled it off although a self centred bastard like

Fenner couldn't acknowledge it, as that sort of generosity was not in his nature. Thankfully, not all of them felt that way.

Scene Twenty

Fenner glowered round the dingy, untidy PO's room the evening after the sit in. He could hear cheery late night calls between the prisoners who sounded

as if they had come back from a late night party. Those bitches were enjoying themselves but what it meant for him was that he was condemned for the foreseeable

future to wear that, by now, hated prison officer's uniform as opposed to the smooth blue suit which he had worn for brief intervals. Just as much as that

symbol of power, he craved the reality of at last being 'top dog' on G Wing, not just by intrigue and manipulation but by direct order and not to have

some pushy bitch on his back.

Ken popped his head round the corner, opened the door and looked nonplussed when he saw that the room wasn't as deserted as he had first thought.

"All right, Ken," He called out hospitably to the plump PO as he hovered indecisively. "Why don't you take the weight off your legs."

"Sorry, Jim, but I've got to see a man about a dog," Ken transparently lied in return, his eyes not meeting Fenner's glare and he paced off rapidly across

the foyer quicker than he was accustomed to.

"Looks like I missed all the fun, Fenner," Mark's mocking laugh broke in on his vengeful thoughts. Oh boy, the one man whom he didn't want to meet, was

sprawling out expansively in the armchair. "Pity you won't be Wing Governor for Bostock's bunch of thugs seeing that the rest of your mates would be otherwise

out the door. You'd better cancel the order for your hand made suit, won't you."

"You'd better remember, Waddle, just who's in charge around here. You've crawled your way up higher than you deserve but, then again, the Prison service

must like wet 'do gooders' like you."

"Oh sorry, sir, Mr Fenner," And Mark gestured with his right arm in an exaggerated parody of an army parade ground salute. "I ought to treat you with the

respect that you deserve, sir."

The two bitter enemies faced each other as they squared up for another bitter quarrel.

"You think you're doing fine for yourself, Waddle," Fenner sneered.

"As a matter of fact, I think I do," Mark retorted, hot headedly in reply not being aware, as he should have been for Fenner's classic 'set up' manoeuvre.

"Well, you're obviously not seeing what's right in front of your eyes, sunshine, Betts and Atkins," Fenner's withering look of contempt and pity started

to make mark feel uncomfortable.

"What the hell do you mean?" Mark interjected angrily.

That's got him rattled, thought Fenner smugly. He's not doing quite a good enough job in hiding his suspicions. It's the same when I wound him up about

me and Karen. He rises to the bait every time.

"Let me put it this way, waddle. I've seen Betts go in and out of Atkins' cell so often that I wondered if they were shagging but I thought, no, she's the

Wing Governor on her rounds. Then I saw her at that sit in when she came through the greenhouse door so quick it was like Superwoman when she saw her lover

in trouble. The signs stand out a mile." Fenner laughed triumphantly.

"You've got lesbians on the brain, Fenner. Karen told me only the other day how she found that porn magazine that turned up in her in tray."

Fenner's face darkened as Mark's verbal thrust got home and showed him to be dangerously well informed. Unfortunately, the devil looks after his own and

he was never down for long.

"For your information, Waddle, it seems to go with the job description for female Wing Governors to start fancying one of the cons. Take Stewart, for example.

She was once engaged to that landscape gardener who used to do jobs round here until she gave him the push and why? Because she took up with Wade."

"Nikki Wade," You're joking?" Mark scoffed.

"Do you go round Larkhall with your eyes closed? I'm trying to stop you making a bloody fool of yourself," Fenner urged, his aggressive instincts bottled

down and a superficial air of apparent honesty which any famous politician would have paid good money to pick up a few tips on how to similarly project

himself.

"Oh yeah, Principal Officer Fenner looking after the welfare of his troops. Right little unpaid social worker you are."

"You seriously think that Karen isn't all over you after all that…….."

"You mean, after you raped her," sneered Mark. "You'd better be careful or I'll carry on from where I left off last time," Mark backed up the menace of

his last remark by glancing meaningfully to a point half way down Fenner's body.

"The truth hurts, doesn't it Waddle," jeered Fenner outrageously, not having a reputation of exactly being constrained by the truth. "Face it, Betts is

into women, or to be exact, one particular woman and you know it."

"The reason why I'm not arguing any more with a bastard like you, Fenner," Mark replied softly with audibly controlled anger, "is that you're just not worth

damaging any further, not if I get into trouble over it. In any way, in case you've forgotten, Karen's done her best to stop our jobs being sold down the

river by you and Grayling - and Yvonne Atkins and the rest of them who stuck their necks out so that our jobs are safe. I've worked up north for the brother

of that bastard Bostock and I know what I'm talking about. Two of a kind. You would have had him come in, take over, for Karen and half the rest to be

given the elbow and let those lot play merry hell. Your turn to wake up, Fenner, and see what's around you."

At that point, Mark stepped forward very close to Fenner. There was an ugly tension in the air and a real possibility that a fight was about to start. Just

in time, Mark's eyes looked away from Fenner, and a short sharp laugh came from his lips, much more in anger than in humour but at least it took away from

that very dangerous escalation in anger that spiralled up inside Mark. This was mostly fuelled because of the man who he loathed and detested, partly because

of the utter contempt of the way that Larkhall's future was so very nearly delivered into the hands of the brother of the worst boss he could ever imagine

and partly because there was something in Fenner's words about Karen that he was starting to believe. This was fed by his insecurity after that disastrous

encounter with Karen which was starting to make it all too believable and also because Fenner had always been able to get under his skin.

"Notice board needs a tidy up," Mark's choked voice attempted a thin very partial covering of nonchalance. "Like this notice of Lynfords. We don't need

this crap about the latest revised terms of conditions, that 'the present staffing levels are due to be reviewed in terms of current needs' and that 'surplus

staff will be notified in person in due course' That lot are history now."

And with that, he removed the drawing pin and held the notice in his hands while staring at Fenner's face as it was his turn to go red in the face and give

off those dangerous signals of barely suppressed violence. Some instinct in him chanced his luck as if he were a tightrope walker and he casually and very

slowly ripped the notice into two and grasped the long fragments of paper and deliberately tore them into quarters.

"There you are, Fenner. Looks a lot tidier now," He smirked, his dangerous anger starting to subside, as he knew that he had needled Fenner in the most

wounding way possible. His breath came in and out in short, rapid gasps for air and the adrenaline inside him was still pumping round his body. Some voice

within him pulled at him by the arm to tell him that he had pushed his luck and the situation quite far enough and that he ought to back off away and out

of it.

"My shift's over today, mate. I'm going for a drink to the Social Club to celebrate. See you tomorrow, unless you fancy a career move," Taunted Mark as

he turned to leave.

"I'm staying right here, Waddle," Fenner growled. "I reckon that Betts and Atkins will be celebrating. Just think of that one."

Mark's smile faded as he left the PO's room to join the lads for a beer or two, to where he felt secure. Despite the relationships in his past, night out

with the lads was a fixed part of his world from his teens onwards. In his time of social isolation at Bradgate, that was what had hurt him as much as

anything and made him feel less of a man than he was used to.

"I don't care what you say, Karen, the perpetrators of that disgraceful exhibition are going to be punished. If we do nothing, then all respect for the

prison officers will fly out the window," Grayling yelled in anger at Karen.

I bloody well know why he's got a petulant strop on, fumed Karen. It's because they put a spoke in his wheel to get his longed for job at area so he need

not concern himself with such mundane details as locking up prisoners. I simply cannot let Yvonne and the others be severely punished when I put Yvonne

up to it in the first place or at the very least, influenced her to do it. This is my responsibility and I have to at the very least minimise the punishment.

"You could say that the sit in was a gesture of support for the prison staying in the prison service, maybe for the prison officers themselves. After all,

Christopher Biggins was well looked after. Instead of the shaken up man whom I expected to find, in fear of his life, I was on the scene first and he sang

the praises of the prisoners. It is likely as a medium profile actor that he will continue to take an interest in the outcome of the prisoners."

"So what do you suggest? Give them privileges for breaking half the rules in the book?" Grayling shouted at the infuriating woman whose nonchalantly defiant

tones tied him up in knots. He was absolutely sure that she was at the bottom of all the mayhem but he couldn't prove it.

"Well, you know how resourceful the prisoners are. There have been letters to the Guardian which have caused acute embarrassment. This will be splashed

all over the news," Karen said gravely, suppressing a big grin and making a mental note to buy up all tomorrow's papers and watch the late night news.

"It's not beyond the more resourceful of our prisoners to get in touch with the press and the headlines, pillory you as being vindictive and possibly secretly

in league with Lynfords. The harder you come down on them, the more certain it will be that you will be named and shamed by the press. I hardly think that

Area will thank you for that."

Grayling winced and put his hands to his head as if he were suffering from an acute headache. His love of the press made it all the easier for him to conjure

up the press headlines.

"So what do you suggest, Karen? Have you anything positive to offer me in the way out of this PR disaster?" Grayling demanded sarcastically.

"I suggest that you impose punishments as in breach of good order but to make them as light as possible. Say, something like a halving in spends for two

weeks and two weeks loss of remission but that if anyone kicks off or misbehaves at this show of clemency, they will be punished to the limit of what the

rule book allows. You may as well own up to acknowledging in public exactly why they acted as they did and show that you accept that they have some intelligence,"

Karen argued forcefully.

Grayling looked glazed eyed for a moment as his devious mind always operated in layering what was said as against what he was scheming to achieve. Total

transparency took him totally by surprise.

"I'll announce this tomorrow, Karen. The ringleaders had better realise, Karen," And Grayling looked hard and accusingly into Karen's eyes and not pretending

to be subtle, "that if there is any further misbehaving, I'll come down on them like a ton of bricks and whoever is responsible will be punished ruthlessly."

Karen gave a deep sigh of relief as the good news sank in. She made her exit politely and made her way home, ready to give Yvonne the good news.

Scene Twenty One (Karen)

When Karen reached home, she poured a large glass of scotch, lit a cigarette and reached for the phone. It would be odd talking to Yvonne, illicitly, after

hours so to speak. But since Bostock's lot had started wandering round her wing without a by your leave, little insignificant rules like this one didn't

mean anything to her any more. She'd gambled with the freedom of some of the inmates, she knew that. But luckily, her gamble had paid off. Would Yvonne

still have been so ready to banish the barrier between con and screw if the gamble had failed? She just didn't know. But there it was the whole point of

why she was now about to phone Yvonne, on her own mobile of all things. Karen knew enough of the ways of people to be pretty sure what was happening between

them, but that didn't mean she didn't have her uncertainties about it. If a relationship, above that of con and screw and even that of friends, was really

developing between them, it was going to be an entirely new experience for both of them. If Karen could be utterly certain of one thing, it was that both

she and Yvonne had been as straight as you could get until now, neither of them ever having contemplated treading the other road to fulfillment.

After having been locked in her cell, Yvonne removed the tiny mobile from her trouser pocket, briefly lifting it to her nose when she caught the faintest

trace of Karen's perfume. That subtle, simple smell made her whole body tingle. Yvonne wasn't stupid, she knew exactly what was happening to her, just

what she was beginning to feel for this woman. Karen wasn't just a screw any more, she couldn't even say she was just a friend. Something was happening

between them, something frightening, exciting and altogether new. Turning her attention back to the phone, she immediately switched it on to vibro-alert,

because she didn't want Fenner or Waddle or even Bodybag coming up here at the sound of a ringing phone. Being the vaguely nosy cow she knew she was, she

briefly scrolled through Karen's address book seeing just whose numbers she felt it important to keep. Mark, Fenner, Ross, that must be her son, and Jesus,

even Ritchie's number was still there. It had shocked Yvonne to see her son's name there, displayed in all its electronic glory, but he had been a part

of Karen's life and she had to face that. Putting the mobile under her pillow, where any self-respecting screw would never try to find it, she simply waited.

She knew that Karen would probably be hauled up in front of Grayling for this afternoon's fiasco, so she was quite prepared to pass the time. But her thoughts

kept returning to Karen, to the talk they'd had not so long ago when they'd exchanged so many deeply held confidences, and to the day Karen had kissed

her. That had been a very innocent, but at the same time exquisitely sensual gesture. It had been like the feather-light touch of pure silk on bare skin,

like the gentle caress of the early morning sun on her face. Jesus, she was getting way too poetic in her old age. Is this what her emerging feelings for

Karen were doing to her? They were making Yvonne Atkins go soft, and that was almost unthinkable. Yvonne paced her cell for a while, trying to reconcile

herself to the realisation that she was in love with another woman. Yvonne Atkins, the straightest woman in the business, was having erotic thoughts about

one of her own sex. When she realised that Karen's talk with Grayling, however fraught, must be over by now, she tucked the phone down inside her bra so

that she wouldn't miss its alert. This simple action brought back fond memories of the time they'd set up Babes Behind Bars. Even though Julie J had taken

it way too far, it had been a laugh for a while. When she eventually felt the "buzz buzz", of the phone against her skin, she knew it was time, time to

get everything out in the open.

"Well, well," Said Yvonne in greeting, "this is nice."

"I thought you might like to know in advance what I manage to verbally bash out of Grayling."

"How did it go?"

"No more shouting than I really expected. I was able, with the odd threat about the press, to make him see that throwing the book at the lot of you would

only serve to fan the flames. So, you're all getting halved spends for two weeks, and two weeks loss of remission. How does that sound?"

"I'm impressed," Said Yvonne dryly. "Well done."

"Well, I didn't think I'd be very popular if he decided to give you all a week down the block."

"No, probably not," Conceded Yvonne. Then, after a moment's pause, she said, "that isn't really why you left your phone with me, was it. News of my punishment

could easily have waited till tomorrow."

"I think we need to talk," Karen said a little awkwardly. "The other day, I shouldn't have kissed you like I did. I'm sorry." Yvonne could hear the mixture

of regret and embarrassment in Karen's tone and immediately sought to assuage it.

"Don't be sorry," Yvonne pleaded gently.

"But I thought," Said Karen in amazement.

"That women really weren't my thing?" Filled in Yvonne. "Yeah, so did I. But with you, it's different."

"Why?" Asked Karen, the broad smile all too evident in her voice.

"I don't know," Said Yvonne thoughtfully. "You make me feel good, about myself I mean. This place, it takes away everything you ever liked about yourself,

but you've given some of that back to me." Karen was deeply touched by such a level of sentiment coming from someone she'd, up until recently, thought

of as hard as nails.

"You did something similar to me too," Karen eventually said. "You reminded me what it was like to feel attractive again, to feel like a normal human being

again." Yvonne knew Karen was referring to the talk they'd had in her office.

"When you kissed me," Said Yvonne in wonder, "That was the sexiest thing anyone's done to me for a long time." Karen laughed huskily.

"You and me both," She said in response. "I don't really know where it came from, it just felt right."

"So," Said Yvonne after a moment, "What the hell do we do about this?"

"See where it goes," Replied Karen. "This is as new to me as it is to you."

A while later when they said goodbye, before switching the phone off, Yvonne again scrolled through the phone book, erasing both Fenner's and Ritchie's

names and numbers, and adding her own. Sure, it would be a little while yet until Karen could call her on her home number, but maybe giving Karen her number

was a sign of what might be to come.

Scene Twenty Two

The spring in Karen's step and her jaunty manner revealed a Karen with much less of the cares of the world resting on her strong but overburdened shoulders.

She smiled broadly at Ken on the gate, a newspaper tucked ostentatiously under her arm to show that Larkhall had hit the news, centre stage, and for once

for the good.

"You look as if you've been handed some good news, Miss Betts."

"We all have, Ken, apart from one or two people I shouldn't name. The newsagent just sold me a copy of it. Looks like you can forget about any alternative

career plans you may have been worrying over."

Ken grinned back at her and he wiped the sleep from his eyes, which opened out onto the very familiar gatehouse, the usual draughty dump, which was now

very dear to him.

Karen made her way directly to the PO's room, feeling a little shy to receive the cheery greetings from one prisoner after another. She felt that she didn't

deserve it in comparison with what they had done. Far in the distance right up on high, the familiar black leathered shape at her familiar spot right at

the top of the 3s looking down at the wing as if she had every right to. It made a dramatic impact on Karen to see her framed by the curved windows behind

her, which illuminated even the dim smoky air far down below her. In place of the stern threatening expression on her face, daring the screws to challenge

her physical authority, she had a broad relaxed smile on her face. Karen raised her hand to wave briefly at her and Yvonne's casual flip of her hand in

return understated, as always, the real feelings inside of her. This would have been a typical brief exchange except for the thumping of Karen's heart,

which told her otherwise. Yesterday's conversation opened up the light and the future between them as much as the sudden bright sunshine streaming down

from the heavens above.

Mark was busy on his duties but not too busy to overlook this brief exchange. For once in his life, that conniving bastard Fenner may have been telling

the truth. His mouth was set in a grim line and an unaccountable feeling of bewildering jealousy swept over him. This wasn't the Karen he knew.

With a pair of sharp scissors, Karen sliced out Page 1 and Page 4 out of the Daily Mirror where an influential paper actually broke ranks and had given

them a sympathetic coverage.

'LARKHALL PRISON SAYS NO TO PRIVATISATION'

Karen grinned as that simple statement said it all and would cause Fenner and Grayling acute heartburn and eat your heart out, Sylvia, wherever you are,

she added maliciously before eagerly scanning the press report, savouring and rereading every word.

"Prisoners at Larkhall staged a peaceful sit in protest at privatisation plans to hand everything over to Lynfords Security. They held hostage porridge

actor, Christopher Biggins who was originally invited by management to present a motorised wheelchair to Lennox Lester, disabled son of one of the protestors,

Buki Lester. The spokesman for the protestors, Yvonne Atkins, said. "Lynfords came along for the ride for cheap publicity so their bid comes out on top.

They are only interested in locking us prisoners up like animals twenty-four seven and making as much money for themselves as possible. We're sorry for

dragging Chris Biggins into this but we had to have something to bargain with to make management listen to us."

"The prisoners treated me like I was one of their family and I absolutely agree with everything they are fighting for," Christopher Biggins was at pains

to point out.

The Chairman of Lynfords declined a full interview but confirmed that they had withdrawn their bid. A spokesman for the Prison Service made a written statement.

'It is too early to comment on where Larkhall Prison goes to now but it should undergo the process of modernisation that the rest of the public services

are eagerly embracing."

"Like hell, if Lynfords are anything to go by." Karen poured scorn on the faceless apologist for all that was worst in management.

With great pleasure, she drove safety pins into the corners of the two pages in its position of pride of place and once again, cast her eyes on the flawless

words that Yvonne had emblazoned on the front page. She deeply admired her nerve and commitment of the boldest spirits in Larkhall. What was it that Helen

was fond of saying to her, "You can only run prisons with the Cupertino of the prisoners." This time, they had gone one better and had saved Larkhall for

her and all the other prison officers. She vowed to tread hard down on any whinging backstabbing bastards there might be and put them in their place and,

as for Grayling, her position was strengthened enormously. She could sense that last night from the fear for his precious position that she could smell

on him. Her thoughts drifted tenderly towards the boldest and quickest thinking of them all whom she felt so strange in turning the keys on last thing

at night, metaphorically speaking. Of all the men in her life, no one came close to what she represented for her and it now seemed surprising that it took

so long to see her for what she was, naked of all misconceptions that she once had about her and vice versa.

"So you've come to gloat, have you. This must make you really feel good." A well remembered ugly voice gouged its way across her sensibilities from behind

her. "I know that a devious bitch like you would use the cons for your little schemes. Couldn't bear it, could you, to see the lads sort them out, especially

Atkins. I reckon there's a thing going on between the two of you."

"Devious? That's rich coming from you, Fenner. Just for the record, I was quite happy to send in the heavy mob to save your life after Shell stabbed you

with a broken bottle. God knows why I bothered apart from professional duty," Karen's cool, scornful tones hit back dismissively, not bothering to get

worked up about him."

"Well, we're all right now," Mark's voice cut in from behind. "We can all sleep a lot easier now that Lynford's lot are out of the way." Unlike his usual

cheerful smile when in Karen's presence, Mark was stone faced and avoided looking at Karen. The lightning connection was made of the absence of Karen's

denial of Fenner's heavy-handed insinuation of who was the keeper of Karen's affections. If there weren't anything in it, she would have confronted the

bastard, the thought ran like lightning from the sharp recall of his hearing, the fine details of her appearance down the conduit to the sore resentful

core of his jealousy. Even the pleasant news that there would not be a Bostock in his life tasted like ashes in his mouth as his suspicions turned into

certainties.

"We've got a lot to thank the prisoners for," Karen's remained unruffled, speaking persuasively in her even tones. "A lot of us would be out on our ear."

"What's going to happen to them, that's what I want to know. Starting a riot…"

"…..That was the best behaved demonstration I've seen, Jim."

"………kidnapping a distinguished visitor, causing an affray. We ought to throw the book at them and keep them banged up down the block for a month and lose

their spends. Even Stewart threw the book at them after the last time they kicked off……."

"That's enough, Jim," Karen's voice, raised several notches cracked like a whiplash, shutting Fenner up for good. "I'm awaiting a phone call from Neil as

the final decision is his. Let's move on to normal business and stop wasting any more time."

Of course, she knew what Grayling was going to say but she had dotted the i's and crossed the t's to make it look as if it were his decision which she would

defend to the officers as a good loyal Wing Governor.

Right on cue, the phone rang. Karen gave it four rings and, with all the time in the world, reached out to take the call.

"Karen Betts…..you've decided what should happen to those who took part in the demonstration…………personal spends, halved for two weeks and two weeks loss

of remission……I have got that quite clear…" Karen's calm voice asked him to repeat his words to Grayling's extreme irritation ……"You're saying that this

is an acknowledgement that the demonstration was carried out as a vote of confidence in Larkhall as run by the Prison Service and after personal representations

by Christopher Biggins to treat them leniently….I agree with you, Neil, that if he was taken hostage and he feels that way, who are we to disagree with

him. Right, Neil, I'll pass on the news and I'll tell the prisoners personally."

Karen turned to the gaping surprised faces and the dangerous glitter in Fenner's red face. Mark in contrast kept a straight face but the wheels in his mind

were rapidly whizzing round, starting off from the thought that Grayling, who could be petty and vindictive, was acting totally out of character. There

was more to this than meets the eye.

"I think you heard the gist of what Neil has decided. I'm going to tell them myself as a group in my office in half an hour's time. My wing, my problem.

Ok that's everything for today."

"Hey, Ju," Julie Johnson asked nervously. "Reckon Miss Betts won't come down on us too hard. It ain't like the screws to see us all in one go unless she's

busy."

The group of women shuffled their way nervously along the corridor to Karen's room under the watchful, blank faced eye of three prison officers. This was

reminiscent of their past as naughty schoolgirls being called up to see the headmistress.

"What about you, Yvonne?" Julie Saunders asked. She had to ask as her poker faced expression gave no indication of her feelings. "You and Miss Betts get

on with each other these days."

Yvonne struggled very hard to repress a broad grin as Julie Saunders gloriously understated the situation between her and Karen. She was duty bound to keep

her mouth shut for Karen's sake. Buki took up the rear next to a very nervous Al who expected hard punishment as the natural course of her life while Babs

faced the event with something like calm assurance that she was in God's hands and he would decide.

"Come in," Karen's soft voice gave a feeling of reassurance to the rather nervous women. This seemed a good sign.

They shuffled their way into the room while Karen gestured them to face her.

"You've all guessed why I've called you in to my office,if I know anything of you. I've talked over yesterday's demonstration and I have to tell you that

you are all technically in breach of Rule 43…….."

Some of the women mentally flinched in preparation of very bad news while Yvonne admired the bloody good act that Karen was putting on. She couldn't have

done a better job herself.

"However, I've had reports from Christopher Biggins singing your praises and Neil and I," and at this point, the faintest grin appeared at the corner of

Karen's lips. "have decided that the lightest punishment should be imposed in view of the responsible way you have all conducted yourselves and that the

point of the demonstration was against Lynfords and for the present prison officers. You will all have your personal spends halved for two weeks and will

lose two weeks remission."

"And you ain't going to send us down the block, Miss?" Julie S asked in utter amazement, wondering if she was in the middle of a dream and she was going

to wake up in the darkness of their cosy cell.

"Why do you think I've called you all in together?" Karen reasoned persuasively. "It saves me having to repeat myself but I feel that I've got nothing to

fear from telling the strongest personalities in G Wing in one gathering. Why should I send you down the block unless you want voluntary segregation for

some reason best known to yourselves? Do any of you have anything to say?"

The little grin on Karen's face was becoming more and more obvious and she raised her eyebrows.

"You've been dead fair by us, Miss. We ain't complaining," Julie Saunders spoke for the relaxed smiles on the faces of the women as they began to take it

all in.

"There is one thing I'm asking you before you go. Can you please not take advantage of what Neil and I have done for you. I don't need to spell it out.

I would come down hard on anyone who abused what I've done for you……"

At that slight slip of the tongue of Karen's part, all the women took to heart what Karen had gently urged on them far more than they had ever listened

to years of Bodybag's nagging patronising homilies and Karen knew that her words weren't wasted.

"You have our word for this, Miss Betts," Yvonne spoke at last. "There will be no trouble. I think I speak for all the girls."

"In which case you are free to go," Karen graciously dismissed them. "Yvonne, I want to catch up with you later on."

Another time, thought Yvonne, she would have wondered who the bloody hell had dropped her in it and it meant trouble. Now she felt a slight quickening of

her pulse as to what Karen would have in store for her.

As the women, some of whom walked on rubber legs with sheer relief, stumbled out of the office, Yvonne gestured them to gather in the corner.

"You heard what Betts said. No shouting our bloody mouths off, no screw baiting. I know bloody well that some of the girls with no bleeding space inside

their heads will see that we've been allowed to get away with out demonstration and will try and copy it. They'll do it over something stupid and mess

everything up for all of us. We've got what we want and we don't let Betts down. We've been done a favour and an Atkins returns a favour for a favour.

Got it?" Yvonne looked sternly, especially in Al's direction who wasn't going to argue the case, not after the almighty reprieve of being shut in the cold

and dark and relive one of her childhood nightmares.

"Guess we're going to have to knock off the ciggies for a while," sighed Julie Johnson in resignation. "What's Betts going to see you about, Yvonne?"

Yvonne's slow mysterious smile made her look unusually serene and relaxed. She had more than a suspicion but she wasn't going to say.

Later on while Yvonne was reclining on her bunk and was reading in total boredom a crappy magazine that she had read a dozen times about ten ways to get

your man. Her sharp ears detected a soft tap at the door. It could only be one person.

"A brilliant performance back there, Miss Betts," Yvonne greeted her in her most understated irony. "I was definitely almost convinced."

The woman who sat down next to Yvonne smiled the freeest widest smile she had ever seen in comparison with the Wing Governor, pushing against the constraints

of her place and her position. The whole feel was one woman casually passing by another woman's place, not Wing Governor on her tour of inspection to one

of the cons.

"I wanted to pick up my mobile from you in case Fenner came snooping round, found it and drew the right conclusions for once. I wanted to pop round to your

place, anyway," Karen mellow voice delicately shifted its inflections from the official to the personal.

"Anytime, Karen," Yvonne answered in her huskiest tones. She drew the mobile out from underneath her mattress. "I've changed a few phone numbers around."

Karen raised one eyebrow inquisitively and scrolled down at the names and phone numbers. Where she expected to find the ghosts of past associations jump

out in the curt rows of letters and numbers, Yvonne had mercifully obliterated and consigned into the cybernetic wastebin the names of Fennner and Ritchie.

They didn't matter any more. With curiosity, she worked her way to the end of the numbers and Yvonne's name stood up boldly and the lifeline to her voice

wherever the two of them might be in the future, together in space or apart.

"You'll be out in two weeks time, Yvonne. You ought to think of your future, our future, if you want it." The Wing Governor edge in Karen's husky voice

melted away to the sensual woman whose body she could feel next to hers.

"Four weeks, Karen. Remember?"

"Oh shit. Did I do that?" Karen replied incredulously as if some officious jobsworth had come between them, sticking her oar in.

Yvonne laughed out loud, the rare lapse in Karen's thinking totally endearing itself to her. She had no patience with dick brained idiots who fouled everything

up that they had dealings with. Her sheer affection at this one foible in Karen's razor sharp thinking made her slide her arm round her waist. It was an

instinctive gesture that both of them found totally natural.

"Till you get out, we'll have to be careful if you really want a relationship with me," Karen spoke softly so tantalisingly close to her. "I won't sleep

easy in my bed till you are finally out of Larkhall and we are free to do as we like."

"Neither will I, Karen," Yvonne's soft voice and eyes like fire melted their way into Karen's awakening soul as Yvonne turned to face her.

This time, both women moved forwards and their soft mouths met in a long deep kiss. This wasn't something that happened to each other as if out of thin

air but they both chose. The softness of their arms embracing each other and the feel of each other's tongues made them feel good about each other and

for each other being the fulfillment that last night's words had promised. Yvonne ran her fingers gently along the feel of the suit that Karen wore and

were temporarily blind and deaf to anything outside their joined worlds.

"Screw." Yvonne hissed, pulling her mouth away from Karen's. Some instinct of self preservation had imprinted into her senses, the hard purposeful tread

of a pair of men's heavy shoes. Karen sat on the bed, her wits temporarily paralysed and infinitely grateful to Yvonne's quick wittedness. Yvonne was standing

in front of her when the cell door opened and Mark put his head round the door.

"Found you at last, Karen. I wanted a quick word with you," Mark said with very fake casualness.

"A woman's work is never done as my mother used to tell me, especially a Wing Governor's," Karen snapped back into normality.

Scene Twenty Three

Karen took one glance at the smudged lipstick on Yvonne's face and her studiously blank expression and deduced that she was similarly incriminated visually,

judging by the expression on Mark's face.

"I'll see you now, Mark, in my office. I don't need you to tell me what it's all about."

"See you later, Yvonne," Mark's superficially friendly air kept up the charade that nobody believed in as he stole the closing words that Karen was going

to say.

Karen exchanged one glance with Yvonne and walked quickly along the corridor as Mark legged it with six mile boot strides, conveying his silent anger.

"Well, what do you want to say, Mark?" She said a little more abruptly as the words replaced her intended, more friendly greeting of 'What can I do for

you, Mark."

"It's about what you shouldn't be doing."

"Meaning?"

"You and Yvonne Atkins. You know the rules about staff getting involved in relationships with inmates. After all, you're Wing Governor," Mark instantly

fired back.

"Yeah, and as I seem to recall, that Gina Rossi got transferred off D wing as she slapped a prisoner whom you were personal officer for whom she said that

you were eyeing up. Don't tell me that she was simply being paranoid."

"Don't play games with me, Karen. Two wrongs don't make a right, especially for a Wing Governor. Anyway, I was different then."

This was an ugly come down for Karen as the day had started so well. The pressures of the last months were lifted from her shoulders and the sunlight that

shone into her soul that also caused her feelings to blossom in a way that was fresh and new. She woke up in the morning with an enthusiasm for life and

not with that numb, dog tired feeling of another day in Larkhall, like the day before and the day before that. Life had weighed her down for so long and

made every day one to be endured and struggled through. So why the hell was Mark spoiling those feelings? A part of her was getting sucked into Mark's

world as she could not, in all conscience, countenance it in others. Good intentions weren't enough or so she had told Mark.

It was that enhanced sense of timescale that came to her rescue. Until yesterday, she would never have dared look forward to the future beyond what was

strictly necessary to do her job. Her personal life had no future that she could imagine and her professional life wasn't any better, except that despite

all her hard struggles, and she was a fighter, the slope was inexorably pointing steadily downwards. Now there was life after four weeks, if she and Yvonne

wanted it.

"There's something in what you say, speaking generally, but Yvonne will be out of here in four weeks time, if my memory serves me correctly." Of course

she knew the exact date but Mark wasn't going to be told that. "After that, will there still be a problem about my relationship with Yvonne?" Karen sharply

demanded.

Mark's mouth remained tight shut as the passing seconds called upon him to testify what he was really about. His silence answered Karen better than he wanted

to admit.

"It just isn't you, Karen," He burst out at last.

"At last, we're getting to the truth. In four weeks, it will come down to what Yvonne and I want for each other. and just how you and I get on, or not as

the case may be. I've told you before. Mark," and here her tone changed from hard unyielding to a weary persuasiveness. "that I have moved on in my direction

and you, you don't seem to have moved on at all. We've been away from each other for months. You are seeing me as I used to be. However compatible we might

have been once, we certainly aren't now. There's no going back for either of us. You're quite strong enough to face up to Fenner but not quite strong enough

to face up to yourself."

"Don't I get a say in what goes on around here?" came Mark's call of defiance against all the fates which had gone against him. His frustration at Karen

closing the door to him obliterated all his good feelings and took away all the sweetness of the moment when he had heard that both Bostocks were history.

"Unfortunately for you, you don't," Karen's eyes closed in pain at the hardness of her own voice which told her to do and say what she must do. There was

no easy way apart from honesty to him which seemed brutal but had none of the pointless cruelty of raising false hopes. Mark was a good man and would be

a good man for another woman, not her, and on both counts, he deserved the best she could do for him. Unfortunately, he was a proud man and wouldn't let

her see the justice of her remarks. On any other matter, with any prisoner she could name he had the capacity to understand.

"You are a bloody good Senior Officer and, don't forget, Fenner and Grayling haven't gone away. They are down but not out. Outside of work, we can be good

friends if you let us, but no more."

"Fine, Karen," Mark snapped sarcastically. "That means a lot to me."

"It should, Mark," Karen's voice was steady and sure and showed real sympathy. "You're popular round here, you've got a lot of friends round here. Just

don't underestimate friendship. You've built yourself up from the knockbacks you had at Bradgate."

A picture in Mark's mind took shape of the warmth and cameraderie and the clustered pints of beer on the table at the PO's social club and the acceptance

that he found which had caused his belief in himself to flower and his willingness to run up against Fenner, the most dangerous man that he had ever known.

He could see himself laughing and joking and exchanging the banter which he had always felt safe with, from any group of 'lad's night out' that he had

ever known. There was a smooth feeling of continuity which was wholly different from some of the jagged edges of his relationships with women, sometimes

gloriously nurturing of the feeling of soft arms and a tender voice, sometimes at sixes and sevens as with Gina when anything he did and said caused endless

arguments. He was somehow able to make a complete idiot of himself with women, something that too much beer and a libido which loosely obeyed the immediate

impulses of the moment without thinking. When he was with the lads, he occasionally had to be steered in the direction of his home and bed but that was

the worst that had happened to him. There was a duality in his life where there was no crossing over from one side to the other. That was what he couldn't

understand, couldn't take in about Karen.

"Except when I was at Bradgate, yeah sure. I stopped believing in myself. When I got back here, it felt like I'd come home. And you were part of that home,

Karen."

Karen was hugely relieved that Mark's voice, for the first time wasn't hostile and accusatory or hurt and accusing. Both were the same sides of the same

coin. She needed to move on with Yvonne and Mark needed to move on and stop being a martyr to the past. He had to discover his future only he had to work

that out for himself at the end of the day.

"Bostock is out of the way and Fenner is like a bear with a sore head. All his dreams of the big time have gone, at least for the time being," Karen's soft

voice spoke with an easy contempt that for the first time from a feeling of security.

Mark grinned at the description of Fenner. He had to admit to himself that the newspaper article on the wall had done them all a power of good. Logically

thinking, he owed Yvonne a debt of gratitude but his feelings of gratitude to her lagged behind him.

"We'd better watch Fenner and Grayling for the future and make sure that the prisoners get a good deal and there's a future for the prison officers. Don't

forget, I used to be good friends with Helen until Fenner drove us apart. It was his doing to set me against her. The man's not stupid. He's the one person

that knows the history of what went on between us and he knows damn well what is going on. We dare not let him drive a wedge between us. That is why you

must accept that I go my own way with Yvonne and you must discover your own future for yourself. I can't help you with that but I can help how I get on

with you as Senior Officer and me as Wing Governor and me as a friend of yours in the same way as your mates. That's why I tell you not to underrate friendship,

Mark. You can't afford to."

"I'll have to go away and think about this, Karen."

"Take as long as you like. You must do as you can't go on hurting yourself the way you are."

Mark smiled briefly and left, the first genuine smile over personal matters Karen had seen on his face since he had come back to Larkhall.

She relaxed back into her chair, feeling that she was having to battle every inch of the way from being pulled backwards to a past that wasn't hers any

more. She reached for a cigarette and breathed in the nicotine greedily. She felt she deserved it.

Scene Twenty Four

Mark woke up to find himself in a strange bar in an unfamiliar part of town. He didn't even know the name of the pub. His feet, which he had stared at as

he paced through the streets, had taken him to wherever they wanted to walk without him thinking about it and, now, his legs felt stiff and tired. Nevertheless,

it had done him so good as he had walked his way as far as intellectually accepting everything that Karen had told him and he had traversed half the way

into his emotions following suit. That was, by far, the more difficult part of the climb. He had stopped at his Camp David, his throat was parched and

he needed a drink.

The relative quiet in the pub as he focussed his eyes only showed up the distant sight of figures, shoulders turned away from him towards their own concerns

and shared drinks. He was on the point of making his way to the bar when a loud, well-educated friendly voice from out of the past called out to him from

behind.

"Mark? Mark Waddle. I'd know you anywhere."

Mark spun round and a tall slim woman with short-cropped dark hair dressed in a smart jacket and wearing jeans walked over in his direction.

"Nikki Wade. After all these years," He went to meet her with outstretched hand and her firm handshake clasped his hand with an effusive bond of friendship.

She had changed, as there was an outward charm about her that was new in place of that sometimes edgy defensiveness. Otherwise, she hadn't changed and

that reassured him

"I'm flattered that you remember one of the old lags from the dump we were both at,"

Grinned Nikki with that verbal sleight of hand which recreated them as equals, in the past as well as the present.

"What are you doing in these parts, Nikki?"

"Killing a lot of time before Helen gets in from one of her Conferences," laughed Nikki

As she caught the waitress's eye. "I was going to prop up the bar on my own but now you're here, I hope we can keep each other company. What are you having?"

"A pint of bitter," Mark said automatically, allowing himself to be drawn with the flow of unexpected good company as Nikki led the way to a table for three.

Nikki's vivacious company buoyed up Mark's spirits and the vastness of the pub faded away into the close conviviality of welcome company.

"Who's Helen?" Mark enquired a mouthful of ice cold beer satisfied the thirst he had been only halfway aware that he had.

"Helen Stewart. My girlfriend," Nikki informed Mark at once. "You didn't know we are an item?"

Mark smiled and shook his head. For his ex girlfriend to be crossing over the road was one thing, to know that that feisty, attractive woman with that attractive

Scottish accent, whom he had vaguely admired from afar, had already crossed was another eye opener. Somehow, there was only so much he could take in, in

one day.

"Something's bothering you, Mark? I can tell that a mile away."

Mark looked into those big brown penetrating eyes which looked sympathetically into Mark's thoughts but that didn't faze him. He found it reassuring right

now being forced to talk and nothing to be frightened of. Once bitten, twice surrender gently to the inevitable, his thoughts wavered in time with that

first soothing trace of alcohol in his bloodstream.

"It's nothing to do with you, Nikki," Mark reassured her with all the earnestness in his nature, which Nikki trusted to. "It's just that I'm getting over

Karen Betts making a new life with another woman. I don't resent her for it, not after talking over everything with her today, it's just that…… "

"Exactly how much was she yours to lose, Mark? Remember, I've had affairs with straight women in the past and I can see it from the other side of the fence.

Matters like these aren't as simple as you make out."

A flood of memories was unleashed by Nikki's words but, for the first time, these memories didn't hurt as much as they had. He had talked things over with

Karen as much as he was ever going to make any sense of anything. He drank deeply from his pint before answering.

"She was, up until Fenner raped her and that messed up our relationship. I was offered a promotion up north where everyone kicked the crap out of me. After

months of living hell, I got out even if it meant going back to Larkhall. You can tell how desperate I was," Mark paused with a bitter laugh. "I went back

to what I thought was home, such as it was and…….."

"………..You thought you could pick up with Karen where you and Karen left off and mend the bridges. You thought that she would stay in a state of suspended

animation till you got back," Interposed Nikki, gently placing her hand on his arm. Privately, she was torn between instinctive sympathy for any woman

suffering at Fenner's hands and hostility to the woman who was no friend of Helen and by extension, of herself either. She thought it prudent not to make

any judgements till she had heard the full story.

"Got it in one, Nikki," Mark breathed. The thought had never crossed his mind of the unreality of his perception. He was enormously glad that someone had

placed this revelation gently into his thoughts. It was the first time that he was starting to see his situation with him divorced from his own perspective.

It let loose a kaleidoscopic rush of thoughts of what he had said, what he had done that he was starting to regret. The sweat started to bead his forehead

and he closed his eyes.

"Are you all right, Mark?" Nikki said with genuine concern.

"I've just realised that I may have acted like a total pillock to Karen," Mark said shakily.

"And you think no one but yourself has?" Nikki said in gentle tones. "Who was the jealous woman who called her girlfriend a two faced tart and stabbed a

gardening fork into her hand? Not exactly my proudest moment. Helen will tell you that one as that was the name I called her. I've made up for that one

a thousand times," Nikki ended with a wry smile on her face.

"You really said that? I thought I was the sort of guy who screwed up worse than anyone. Getting pissed and shagging Di Barker in the gent's toilet wasn't

exactly the thinking of Einstein," Mark confessed. Somehow unburdening to this friendly woman felt safe as especially as she was promised to another woman

and was somehow untouchable. That made him feel safe where all the boundaries were defined.

"Jesus, Mark. How come a good-looking guy like you have such lousy taste in women? Any other woman but Di Barker, I ask you."

At that moment, Helen swept over to the group dressed in her favourite black trousers and black leather jacket and kissed Nikki on her cheek. This was a

pub off their beaten track and both were finely attuned to the atmosphere of public places in terms of displays of affection.

"Hi Mark. This is a bit of a reunion. Still slaving away at Larkhall?"

"Been away and come back, Helen. That's a long story though. The place has changed since your time. For a start, they tried to privatise it."

"Privatisation?" chorused the two women in horror.

"Just when you think that dump couldn't possibly get any worse, it only proves you wrong." Nikki's flat tones belied the repulsiveness that she felt of

the very idea. A grotesque horror vision arose in their mind of Bodybag actually charging the prisoners out of their personal spends to act like a petty

jobsworth. The walls of Larkhall hung around with sponsorship advertising rose from their horrified imaginations into words.

"Not quite as bad as that. Only an outfit called Lynford Securities using a presentation of a motorised vehicle for Buki Lester's kid to get press publicity

to show what a caring, sharing outfit they are when they are complete bastards."

"As bad as that, Mark?" Helen asked in horrified outrage.

"Yeah. Jim Fenner was trying to weasel his way in as Wing Governor and shaft Karen Betts. She's still here, thank God and they've packed their bags and

gone."

"Fenner was after Karen Betts's job? She gets no sympathy from me after the shit I took from her, threatening me with accusations of harassment just because

I dared to tell the stupid woman that the sun didn't shine out of his backside…."Helen launched into a diatribe against Karen before Nikki stopped her

mid flow.

"Hold it, Helen, I think things have moved on at Larkhall since our time. It sounds to me like Fenner was using her against you first before moving on to

nobble Karen. Divide and rule. One of the oldest tricks in the trade, yeah?" Nikki turned to Helen and fixed her with her gaze and the other woman nodded

reluctantly.

"How was it that someone managed to put a spoke in their wheel, Mark. Only someone who's resourceful and crafty could have pulled that off. Someone like……"

"…….Yvonne Atkins." Nikki's nostalgic smile for old time's sake got in before Helen could come out with the words.

An excited three-way babble of conversation transformed the pub into an animated area as the barmaid looked on enviously at the good lucking guy with not

one but two attractive women. Some guys have all the luck, she thought bitterly as she was stuck here in this dead and alive hole, working all sort of

unsocial hours.

As Helen went to buy the next round, Nikki could tell that there was something that the much livelier Mark wasn't telling her. There was an atmosphere of

loneliness that she could sense from when she first came up to him and a gratitude for her company, any company.

"You've not told me of all that's bothering you," Nikki pursued gently.

"It's the typical thing of where does a guy in his thirties who's knocking on a bit, too old for clubs, just how does he get to meet a good woman." Mark's

long pent up feelings that felt too strong for words at last poured out of him when the barriers were down.

"I haven't any easy answers, Mark, but that's the problem for everyone growing up in this big city. I came here when I was sixteen and was thrown out of

home and boarding school for quote 'lesbian activities." Nikki pulled a face to hear her first love so coldly disparaged even after all these years.

"In a way, it was easier on me than for other women that I've talked to over the years. For instance, it took Helen and a lot of women like her, a lot of

pain and soul searching for her to finally realised that what she wanted was a woman. I was spared all that. But it was still hard going into a pub or

club and trying to work out if the girl you were talking to felt the same about you the same way you felt about her. I'm in my thirties now, about the

same age as you are and there's gay clubs these days which makes it easier, like the one I run with Trish. The reason for that as they didn't have places

like that when I was young."

"You didn't do that just for the money, Nikki," Mark cut in approvingly.

"………though I got to admit, it helped. Plus making my way in the world as I never got any help from my parents," Nikki added, her face darkening at the memory

before leading off in a more even fashion.

"I know that I've found my soulmate in Helen that you're still looking for…….I know it's easier for the women who come to my club and others to meet but,

then again, there are places for a straight guy like you, as easy as it gets for anyone in this world whoever they are."

Nikki's calm, reasoned tones held Mark's attention while the quiet pub sounds faded into the background. He didn't monopolise all the problems in the world

in the way that his down at heel feelings of utter dejection had made him believe.

"So, it sounds that the likes of Yvonne and the others did a favour for you, Karen and every decent prison officer in that dump," Nikki said quietly as

Helen started to make her way back to the table with a trayful of drinks. Mark nodded assent, influenced by the persuasive way that he and Karen were neatly

bracketed together made Mark think of what they had in common in their work as opposed to what emotionally drove them apart. In all good conscience, he

had to agree, in fact he readily agreed with Nikki as dark nightmares of Bostock drifted before his eyes. For the first time, he felt kindly disposed towards

Yvonne.

"If you don't mind me asking, Mark," Nikki asked politely, "who is Karen seeing?"

"Yvonne Atkins," Mark stated briefly.

"You don't mean, the super straight Yvonne who once told me she'd sooner shag Fenner than turn lezzie? You're talking about the woman who I gave the name

of an old mate of mine who runs an escort agency and sneaked the guy right under Bodybag's nose by posing as a brief."

"What's that I'm hearing." Spoke a Scottish accent on the point of bursting into laughter, at the same moment that the tray clattered on the table before

it was dropped.

Nikki fell about in helpless laughter at the sheer hilarity overcome her before Helen's joined in, at full volume. The irresistable tide of laughter swept

Mark along with them and it had them in stitches so much that their sides started to ache. It did Mark good to laugh with them as, for so long, he had

nothing to laugh about.

In the middle of an animated conversation, they were suddenly dazzled by a single spotlight slanting down at a corner of the pub where a single microphone

was set up.

A woman with longish blond hair swept gracefully on stage, carrying a shiny twelve string guitar and she attracted the interest of the three of them.

"One, two, one two." Her mellow voice echoed round the pub with a slight distortion and she rapidly introduced herself a little too quickly before anyone

could catch her name, which betrayed a touch of nerves.

Needle sharp circling flurries of notes suddenly curled their way into Nikki's mind which sobered her up from the drunken hilarity of earlier on. Her rich

singing tones immediately wrapped their way round her senses.

"Hey, you guys, just listen to her," she said softly, reverently, entranced by the delicacy of the imagery.

"Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play.

Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day

The sun is up, the sky is blue

It's beautiful and so are you.

Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play?

Dear Prudence, open up your eyes.

Dear Prudence, see the sunny skies.

The wind is low, the birds will sing

That you are part of everything

Dear Prudence, won't you open up your eyes?"

Tired out though Helen was by a busy conference and lots of travelling, it immediately struck her that this was not the cheaply rhyming birthday card lyrics

of popsongs that she heard on the radio. It was the sort of magical happening which called out to Nikki to emerge stardust and smiling from her dark moods.

It told of the protectiveness that Nikki had always felt for Helen from before they were lovers.

"Look around round

Look around round round

Look around "

It took longer for the enchanted words to take possession of Mark's soul but the feel of the music made time stand still till the chorus hypnotized him

as if it were an Indian mantra for him to meditate on. He was transfixed by the repetition of the singer's demands on him to loosen himself up. He never

realised until then how tense he had been, tied down and bound down by his earthly workaday cares. He studied the long fair hair of the woman flick back

as she moved rhythmically as she played. She's like Karen, and the thought like a falling leaf drifted past him to gently embrace the soil. Karen's not

here, Mark, he gently chided himself. She belongs to another and you can safely let her go and you shall achieve deliverance.

"She's beautiful," Nikki breathed but these were no words of awakening desire for the woman. This was the rightful and respectful secular worship of all

that was spiritual, as if this was her favourite book, turned into sound and vision.

"I've never heard anything like this before." Mark's peaceful words moved in slow motion as he struggled to describe what lay too deep for words.

"We know what you mean, you don't need words." Helen's soft words meandered their

way past his senses

"Dear Prudence, let me see you smile.

Dear Prudence, like a little child

The clouds will be a daisy chain

So let me see you smile again

Dear Prudence, won't you let me see you smile?"

"That was a John Lennon song." An educated voice, a little like Nikki's paid due reverence from the stage to the creator of the song.

The three of them were the most attentive devotees of the unknown singer who reached out to span the decades of all that was best before the age of popstars

and celebrity worship did its best to bury what had gone on before with the cheap profanity of modernity. The rest of them talked about their favourite

Eastenders episode and football results, unheeding as they drank their way to the oblivion that the rest of their lives had not pushed them into already.

The singer of their awakened dreams gently led them by their hands through the rest of the songs that had most inspired her, many years ago, when she had

shut herself away in her bedroom with her cherished songs and her guitar.

Nikki led a fervent round of applause at the end of the short set, her eyes glowing. The singer smiled in response, moved out of the spotlight to become

the unassuming person who she really was in her daytime role.

"Hi, I'm Judy Collins, in case you didn't get it first time around." She smiled, warmed by the feelings coming off in waves from the darkness outside the

spotlight. "It's nice to get the feelings of people who can relate to these songs."

"You were fantastic," Mark exclaimed while Nikki picked up on Judy's modesty in not laying claim of ownership of songs which she was as much a fan as they

were. To his star struck eyes, her immediate friendliness drew him into a better world than his daytime job promised.

Judy chattered awhile to these friendly strangers. She had sung her heart out but the reaction wasn't too encouraging. The landlord tolerated her for bringing

in a bit more custom on a quiet night and she had no dreams of sudden TV fame and fortune beyond her daytime job where few people around her knew her for

who she was. It was these rare encounters with people like these, which validated what she was doing and gave her the heart to carry on.

"You don't happen to have any of your songs on records." Helen enquired out of sudden inspiration.

Shyly, the other woman reached for her holdall and fished out a batch of CD's made on an independent label.

"We'll have one each for ourselves of course, "Nikki proposed to the general nod of approval………"and I'll buy nine others for some friends of mine who I

know will love this kind of music."

The other woman's heart jumped a mile as it was common for her to sell the odd CD or two if she was lucky and she smiled warmly at them as did the woman

in the song that she had sung with such conviction.

Presently, the three women talked lightly to each other while Mark lay back, a happy contented smile on his face and clear untroubled eyes. He was in familiar

good company and the room swam in front of his eyes as he was happily drunk and at home with the world about him.

"You're tired," Nikki said gently, more a statement than a question, seeing the way that the other woman's eyelids drooped down as she tried to be polite

and give of herself.

"I need to get home and crash out," she sleepily mumbled as the adrenaline kick back overwhelmed her in a wave of exhaustion.

"Wait a minute, do you want a lift back. You too, Mark?"

Both nodded and smiled in gratitude as the insurmountable problems in how to drag themselves back to their respective homes were tenderly and thoughtfully

cared for.

Presently, Mark was sprawled in the back seat of a car, Judy's black guitar case across his knees and, like previous good nights out singing untunefully

"Show me the way to go home

I'm tired and I want to go to bed…"

The steady intake of alcohol and good vibrations had reduced him to a state of blissful serenity where he felt he could cope with anything and everyone

in his life. This was no drunken optimism to fade as the cruel daylight in the morning turned the fuzzy certainties of the evening out to the cut and dried

defeats of another day even before they had happened.

"He's got no future as a backup singer if you ever wanted one," joked Helen to Judy.

"Which way, Mark? Helen's crystal ball has gone on the blink." Nikki's firm voice called him to order.

"Oh…errr. Second right and stop at the next junction." Mark mumbled to the grins on the faces of the three women.

"You're sure you'll be all right," Judy called out in a concerned voice as he reeled out of the passenger door.

"I will survive," Mark called out with exaggerated confidence as his finger pointed his uncertain way to his front door which they saw him open as they

set off down the road.

They dropped Judy off outside her place amongst the endless terraced streets like cliff walls with their shut in people and Nikki helped her carry her guitar,

that instrument of spirituality that had taken themselves out of themselves.

After that, the road home for them zigzagged with certainty down the darkened streets to a home that was assuredly theirs.

Scene Twenty Five

To Karen, the four weeks until Yvonne's release felt like the final stages of a rollercoaster ride. She had come through the vertiginous upside / downside

changes in her life, which she had been prisoner to since who knows when. It was getting time to unclip the safety straps and take her first uncertain

steps to who knows where. Yvonne had always been around in her journey but she was only getting to realise that.

The first of the gentler aftershocks in her life arrived in the presence of Mark. She was conditioned to dealing with that proud man who pretended to himself

that noone else could see his feelings that he kept hidden to himself. He had always been at the side of her vision, or facing her with his set of demands

on her head yet at the same time was a solid support from this side of the prison bars. Her last parting words to him the night before had been addressed

to herself as much as him.

She looked with incredulity at the somewhat hungover man, wearing a broad, happy smile at everyone who came into the PO's room. He even smiled faintly

at Fenner who looked suspiciously at him, wondering in his paranoid way, if Waddle knew something that he didn't and making a mental note to be extra careful.

Since his dreams of being Wing Governor went out the door with Bostock, he vowed to watch out for waddle and Betts ganging up on him.

Karen ran through the morning's business rapidly without any petty wrangling these days. Fenner just glowered and said nothing. They filed out of the room,

Mark being the last to leave.

"Have you found Miss Right, or something?"

Instantly, Karen regretted the way she had blurted it out and feared that the way she had said it was a little sarcastic when all she intended was mild

interest. She braced herself for Mark to fly off the handle with a full on sarcastic rejoinder which would set off the hostilities again.

"As a matter of fact, Karen, I've been out on the town with two Miss Rights," grinned Mark broadly.

"Pardon?" Karen answered in a totally bemused tone of voice.

"I bumped into Nikki and Helen last night in some strange pub which I'd never been to before and had a night on the town."

"Nikki as in Nikki Wade and Helen as in Helen Stewart,"

"You got it now, Karen," Mark's words rolled off his tongue. "And they are an item."

Karen stared with total incredulity at the riddles Mark was spinning for her followed by a bolt from out of the blue. It seemed to be ages before she could

stumble across the words to answer him.

"Fenner told me that one ages ago but I was sure that that was a load of bollocks. The one time in his life he tells me the truth and I didn't believe him."

"Well, don't get hung up about it, Fenner of all people," grinned Mark broadly, "Anyway, we talked all night and had quite a bit to drink between us, well,

me mostly. We watched this fantastic folk singer and got chatting to her as well, very interesting she was. They dropped me off and very kindly pointed

me in the direction of my front door, as I was a bit legless by then. Anyway, we'll keep in contact and that is stage one to get more of a positive attitude.

I've been making big plans, you know."

"You have?" Karen echoed Mark's cheerily determined brand of positivism.

"Oh yes, you were right about a lot of things you've said in the past. I wasn't all wrong but I have behaved like a total prat on occasion."

"Oh, splendid. I'm really glad the way you have found a direction in life. It's rather sudden, that's all," Came the odd tentative interspersed comment

to Mark's determination to monopolise the conversation. Jesus, she never thought that he could talk so much and not let her get a word in edgeways.

"Don't you want me to agree with you, Karen?"

"Oh yes, of course, of course I do, Mark. It's great that you are so……different," Karen hastened to add.

"Oh yes, before I forget. Helen wasn't terribly pleased when your name came up in conversation……." At that point, Karen groaned inwardly at Mark's heavy

handed obvious attempt to minimise the situation and be terribly kind to her. "…….but Nikki stuck up for you," Mark added earnestly, the conversation further

bewildering Karen with Mark's rapid shift from topic to topic,

"It's nice to know that I've got friends."

"Well, of course you have. It stands to reason." Mark's best 'selling fridges to Eskimos'

Was as irresistible as a juggernaut hurtling past at full speed."What I was leading up to though I seem to have gone round the houses, is can the two of

us be friends. Straight down the line with any idea of me hassling you in any shape or form right out the window."

One last flicker of reservation came to the surface when Karen had the brief compulsion to turn and run at the very thought of defining what lay between

the two of them in terms of putting it into words.

"I know you, Mark Waddle. You might think you're not pressurising me and I'm sure you're perfectly sincere in what you're saying, it's just that…….."

"Let's put it this way. I owe Yvonne a lot for having the guts, and the others too, to stand up against Bostock and his mob. I should know, working for

his brother. You know, I really respect her when I see the other PO's skulking on the sidelines, only peeping their heads out when they can see who's winning."

Mark laughed bitterly. "Coming here and having you in this place has been a picnic in comparison. I hope that I've been an improvement on Sylvia as Senior

Officer."

Karen's mind blanked out at Mark's commercial advert for Yvonne's integrity and latched onto the comparison between Mark and Sylvia. There was no competition.

She suddenly grinned at Mark as a sudden wash of that eternally moaning bigoted backstabbing woman who Karen had to drag along like a ball and chain through

her career at Larkhall.

"You really mean everything that you're saying?" This was half a question, half a statement.

"You have my word on it, Karen," Mark spoke out clearly and confidently.

Karen stretched out her hand and shook it warmly as an affirmation of friendship and of a deal between them.

"Gotta go, Karen." Mark smiled one last time and strode out onto the wing with all the confidence in the world and cheerily returning the greetings of the

prisoners. Karen looked after him, still confused but with a pleasant feeling inside her of peace.

She was still smiling to herself when a thought popped into her mind and started to nag at her. It took her off track away from her office and instead to

climb the metal staircases on her way to the 3s. She had to find out the answer and who better than the exchange and mart and Bank of England vault of

the accumulated memories of Larkhall, Yvonne Atkins.

"You're a woman on a mission," Yvonne observed, taking in Karen's slightly flustered demeanour with a quick visual once over.

"Tell me, Yvonne. I've just found out a piece of news that is really a turnup for the book," Karen waded in without a polite preamble. "Did you know that

Helen Stewart and Nikki Wade are an item?"

Yvonne smiled tolerantly at Karen. Feelings were growing inside her that Karen was right for her and that she was right for Karen. The other woman had all

the combined intelligence and strength that she had never found elsewhere but she did have her endearing little foibles, which made her human.

"Oh, that's old news. I could have told you that one ages ago if you'd asked me. They had been together even before they left Larkhall. The way Stewart

left the place so fast her feet didn't touch the floor made it bleeding obvious. I have turned up the book for you, I can tell by the expression on your

face, Wing Governor, ma'am." She gently teased the other woman who could only think, first Yvonne knows before I did and then Mark of all people got to

know first, everyone but me.

"And what's that, Yvonne." She heard herself automatically ask.

"Juliet and Juliet. Nikki told me that joke an' all."

Karen flopped down on Yvonne's bunk. It was better there than on the floor. For all Karen's exhalted status in the wing, she did wonder more than ever if

there was a Goddess who was an incurable practical joker. She asked herself why she had been singled out, not out of divine punishment but just out of

amusement. She thought she had lived a tolerably good life, working hard to improve the lot of both prisoners and prison officers under her care so why

was she the fall guy? Get a grip, Karen, the tough minded part of herself told herself off, this is not the time or place to speculate about Divine Justice

and it is definitely not your style.

Yvonne grinned mischievously. It was very rarely that she had seen Karen as other than than the cool, self-controlled very strong woman. There was more

to come, she could tell.

"I've just had another strange experience. I've had a run in or two with Mark Waddle over the very same thing, why can't things be the same between him

and me as when

he was last at Larkhall. You've heard me talk of our history and read what I wrote on my computer….." Karen's voice trailed off as the memory of how much

she had told her, in words and writing, she had revealed of the Karen Betts that she kept under wraps that the ordinary everyday public would never see.

The way Yvonne reached out and took her hand was enough answer for her.

"Anyway, he was doing his moody injured pride routine when I was arguing with him

last night and today, he couldn't be more enthusiastically in agreement with everything I was trying to get through to him."

"And you're worrying about it?"

"Well, wouldn't you?"

"You are joking of course, Karen." Yvonne shook her head in wonder, a very rare gesture for a woman who had trained herself to minimise her outwards displays

of her inner feelings, but, there you are, there's a first time for everything. "Is Mark Waddle the devious underhand paid up member of the 'all men are

bastards' club. There ain't many men around that I'd believe straight off what they are telling me but he is one of them."

This is getting really weird, Karen's dazed mind was telling her. First I hear Mark sturdily speaking up for Yvonne and now I see Yvonne doing the same

for Mark. They ought to act normally and be scratching each other's eyes out.

"Well, no as you put it this way," Karen was forced to concede.

"Well, you stupid cow, we've got a clear run to do what we want to do so long as we're careful. Haven't we?"

Karen nodded to herself as Yvonne slid her arms round her and their lips met in a deep kiss which both of them savoured the sweetness of as the taste of

things to come if they let themselves. The choice was theirs and theirs alone.

The last few weeks before the day of release passed in a slow blissful haze and the days were mentally counted down, one after another. On the morning of

her release, a broad, fairly thick manila file appeared in her in tray and Karen knew exactly which prisoner that file referred to. She grinned at the

thickness of it which spoke of Yvonne's very colourful career at Larkhall. Even in the tiny 'mug shot', Yvonne's challenging smile made the rest of the

surroundings seem drab. She signed off the file with a flourish for it to be consigned to the depths of the files.

Yvonne was pacing about as she had not heard from Lauren and this made her nervous. She had nursed this fantasy a long time ago of the moment when she was

released of taking the chance to publicly mouth off to all the screws and sweep out of the gates and be picked up by Lauren in her flashiest car. At one

time, the driver in mind had been Charlie but she had obliterated that mental celluloid film when he did the dirty on her. And now, she couldn't have a

go at the screws as there were some of them she had some respect for and as for Karen…….. In the end, she resolved to have one dig at Fenner and leave

it at that. As for Lauren, it was an understood thing that she would give her a lift home but that cut across what, deep down, what she wanted. That seemed

pie in the sky dreams as Karen had a wing to run.

She had seen the tears and the hugs as women who were released passed down the line of the wing to be honoured and missed and for some of everyone's heart

to go with that woman in an utterly unselfish way. Each woman was getting released and getting free for the rest, first Nikki, then Crystal and now it

was her turn.

"I'll be glad to see the back of you, Atkins," snarled Fenner. "None of the other cons can be gangland boss without you to lead them astray. I'll get some

peace and quiet."

"Don't worry, Mr Fenner, sir, the Julies will step into my shoes where I leave off. If I'm not around there will be plenty of others to cause you grief

and not let you rest. It was a number of us that took over the greenhouse and ruined it for you and Bostock. Match made in heaven, not quite," Yvonne cut

back with her most provoking smile and was gone down the aisle to massed chants of "Yvonne, Yvonne" and the rattling of the coffee mugs. She twisted her

body and right up into the 3's prisoners lined the rails and smiled and chanted at her.

"You keep an eye open for Fenner, Julies and stay safe." Her huskiest most choked tones revealed Yvonne at her softest.

"We'll be fine, 've learnt a lot from you. We'll miss you loads though but you've got a future for yourself out there, hasn't she, Ju."

"A future, yeah." Julie J echoed.

Every most precious intimate thought and feeling was exchanged in that least intimate of environments as Yvonne reached the end of the line and saw the

massed faces of all the prisoners, and was it the tears in her eyes but did she see Nikki's and Crystal's smiling faces willing her on and to say that,

you too have made it Yvonne.

Karen had been rehearsing and rehearsing the words she was going to say as she would have to say some choice words that suited the occasion, that she had

started out being the brains behind every crafty scheme that went down at Larkhall, that her memory had more in it than the files in her drawer, that she

had gone on to be a mother to every prisoner who came here and wanted help and that she was sure that Yvonne would be missed on the wing. It was all very

true but didn't say it in words that felt right for her.

Instead, she took a last minute call and came running up to Yvonne faster than she normally moved. Some compulsive force made her move like lightning and

she drew her into a side room.

"I'm sorry, Yvonne, but I've taken a call from your daughter Lauren to say that she's got a problem and she's stuck. She's given her apologies. I said I'd

pass the message on and you could phone her back on your mobile."

Instantly, Yvonne became aware that, in the plastic bags full of her possessions, her mobile phone was in the midst of it whose number was safely lodged

on Karen's."

"Hi Lauren. Don't worry yourself. I'm getting a lift with a friend of mine. I'll phone you later. Sorted." Yvonne grinned to Karen's huge satisfaction.

"Do you know of anyone who could give me a lift." Yvonne's low pitched voice asked invitingly.

"I suppose I could." Karen shrugged her shoulders in an exaggerated fashion while her eyes were locked with Yvonne's. "The paperwork can wait. This place

won't fall apart if I'm away for a while."

"Well, so long as you have plenty of time on your hands."

Karen smiled broadly, showing her white even teeth as the event upon which she had pinned her hopes and fears seemed to be going her, no, their way.

"Mark, I'm disappearing out for a bit as Yvonne's lift hasn't turned up. Can you tell Fenner the news."

"It will give me pleasure to see his face. Even better than kneeing him in the groin," Mark grinned.

Right at the end, Karen publicly shook hands with Yvonne to the cheering crowds and led her out into the courtyard. Yvonne blinked as the sunlight hit her

and she told herself, yes, she was allowed out this far without anyone questioning her as to her whereabouts.

"I'll give you a hand." Karen offered and took one of the plastic bags off Yvonne, opened the boot of the green sports car and helped carry them. Yvonne

glanced up at the high grey walls of Larkhall, the very same walls, which she had tried to shin over with a rope ladder that, many many months ago Karen

and Fenner had stopped her from getting over. It was perhaps for the best, the way her life was turning out.

They walked easily through the open gates of Larkhall with ridiculous ease, put them inside. It was a gradually understood matter that Yvonne would not

need to perch them on her lap for a short hop.

Yvonne sat in the passenger seat of the car and felt very much at home in it already. The whole reality of what was opening up to her made her feel dizzy

and excited at the same time.

Karen smiled the relaxed smile as the vestiges of her Wing Governor persona fell from her like her clothes onto the floor.

In the rear view mirror, Fenner could be seen emerging through the prison gates, red faced and shouting. Yvonne resisted the urge to raise one finger up

to him and smiled and waved at him instead.

The smooth sounds of the sports car reassured them that its power would take them away forever. Both of them felt like they were naughty schoolgirls bunking

off school and, indeed, a little of them felt that life was as new and opening like a flower to them as life had done many years ago.

"Where do you want me to drop you off." Karen's husky voice asked of her. She felt keyed up with excitement and anticipation

"Wherever you want to take me," Yvonne's voice reassured both of them to their rising desires that Karen's everyday journey back and forth between her place

of work and her flat would not be on her own this time.

The grey front gates of Larkhall which had seen so many prisoners and prison officers come and go through the ancient gates through the centuries, saw the

daylight shine down on them all and the rectangular green shape of Karen's car gradually diminish in size until it was lost in the distance and speed far

away into the horizon.

The End


End file.
